WD97: "Too Many Data Fields" Managing Mail Merge in Source View (115146)
The information in this article applies to:
- Microsoft Word 97 for Windows
This article was previously published under Q115146 SYMPTOMS
In a mail merge main document, if you click the Edit Data Source
button on the Mail Merge toolbar, click the View Source button, click
the Manage Fields button on the Database toolbar, and then click OK,
one of the following error messages may occur:
Record 1 contained too many data fields.
Record 1 contained too few data fields.
These errors only occur if you switch to source view. They do not occur
if you modify your data source in data form view.
CAUSE
This happens if you are using a separate header source. When you click
the Manage Fields button on the Database toolbar, Word opens the data
source file rather than the header source file and treats
the first data row as the header row.
Word stores any changes you make in the data source instead of the
header source file. Then, when you click OK to close the Manage Fields
dialog box, Word displays the "...too many data fields" error message.
The same error message also occurs each time you open your data source;
for example, it occurs when you click the View Merged Data button on
the Mail Merge toolbar and switch from one record to another.
NOTE: If you notice that the first record in your data source contains
field names instead of data, you may have edited your data file in
Source view, or you may not have a separate header source file attached
after all.
WORKAROUND
NOTE: Once you receive the error message, the data file will not be usable
unless you open the file and compare the number of columns to the number of
columns in your data header file. More than likely, the number of columns
in the data source will be greater than the number of columns in the header
file. You will need to delete the columns from the data file that should
not be there, and you will need to make sure that the column information
matches up with the column information from the data header source.
Otherwise, you will need to create a new data file.
When you use a mail merge header source file, perform all your data
management tasks in Data Form view, not in Source view. In other words,
do not click the View Source button in the Data Form dialog box.
If you want to manage your mail merge data source in Source view, you
cannot use a separate header source file.
STATUS
Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in the versions of Word
listed at the beginning of this article.
| Modification Type: | Major | Last Reviewed: | 11/14/2000 |
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| Keywords: | kbinfo kbmerge KB115146 |
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