Q115146: WD97: "Too Many Data Fields" Managing Mail Merge in Source View

Article: Q115146
Product(s): Word 97 for Windows
Version(s): WINDOWS:97
Operating System(s): 
Keyword(s): word97 kbmerge
Last Modified: 14-NOV-2000

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The information in this article applies to:

- Microsoft Word 97 for Windows 
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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.

  -or-

  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.


Additional query words: disappeared records switched gone

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Keywords          : word97 kbmerge 
Technology        : kbWordSearch kbWord97 kbWord97Search kbZNotKeyword2
Version           : WINDOWS:97
Issue type        : kbinfo

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