DMM: Unable to Read Tab or Comma Delimited Word Documents (179971)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Direct Mail Manager for Windows
This article was previously published under Q179971

SYMPTOMS

If you attempt to use a Microsoft Word document containing tab or comma delimited data as your address list in Microsoft Direct Mail Manager, you will receive the following error message:
Error: "The selected document <document name> does not contain a table."

CAUSE

Microsoft Direct Mail Manager can only read data in Microsoft Word documents when the data is stored in a table format.

WORKAROUND

To convert your data from tab or comma delimited format to table format, follow these steps:
  1. Select the data. (On the Edit menu, click Select All.)
  2. On the Table menu, click Convert Text To Table.
  3. Click somewhere in the document so that the text from the table is no longer selected.
  4. Save and Close the document.
You can now use this document as your address in Microsoft Direct Mail Manager.

NOTE: This workaround has several limitations:
  • Microsoft Word is limited to 63 columns of data in a table. Therefore, Word cannot convert more then 63 fields of data into a table.
  • n order for this workaround to correctly separate the fields into table cells, there must be the same number of fields in each data record. Having an inconsistent number of fields in the records will create blank cells or the data may end up in the wrong fields. You can correct the records by adding extra commas or tabs for the blank data so that all of the records have the same number of fields.

REFERENCES

For more information about converting data to table format, please see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

140344 WD: How to Convert Data in One Column to a Table for Merging

142101 WD: Text Converted to One Row (Paragraph Marks Ignored)

159687 WD: How to Convert WordPerfect 6.x Data Files and Address Books

Modification Type:MajorLast Reviewed:11/7/2000
Keywords:kbbug kbprb KB179971
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