WD: "Header Record Delimiters" Appears Repeatedly in Mail Merge

ID: Q105695

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Word for Windows, versions 6.0, 6.0a, 6.0c
Microsoft Word for Windows 95, versions 7.0, 7.0a
Microsoft Word for the Macintosh, versions 6.0, 6.0.1, 6.0.1a

SYMPTOMS

If a single field data file is in a paragraph delimited form, the dialog box

   Header Record Delimiters

will appear at several points during the mail merge process. The default Field Delimiter is displayed as [none]. To properly close this dialog box, leave the settings as they are displayed and click OK.

NOTE: This information in this article applies only to data files that consist of a single field. If this dialog box appears when using a data file with two or more fields, there is an error in the header record.

CAUSE

This dialog is prompting you to select the character to separate fields and records in the data file. For example, in many multiple-field data files, a comma is used to separate each field and a paragraph (hard carriage return) is used to separate each record. In the case of a single field data file, there is no field separator.

This dialog box appears every time the data file is read during the mail merge process. Some of these instances include:

Immediately after you select the data file name from the Mail Merge Helper Attach Data File screen
After you click OK in the Data Form Window
After you close a file opened in View Source mode

Click OK to remove this dialog box from the screen in all of these cases. Clicking Cancel may cause Word to open the source file in View Source mode.

If you open the data file in View Source mode immediately after you cancel the Header Record Delimiters message, click the file and click Yes when prompted to save the changes. Clicking No and canceling the Header Record Delimiters message breaks the link between the data file and main document.

WORKAROUND

To convert the data file to a single column table, follow these steps:

1. Open the data file.

2. On the Edit menu, click Select All.

3. On the Table menu, click Convert Text To Table.

4. Set Number Of Columns to 1 and set Separate Text At to Paragraph.

5. Click OK.

Additional query words: merged merging field data

Keywords          : winword kbmerge macword word6 word7 word95 
Version           : WINDOWS:6.0,6.0a,6.0c,7.0,7.0a;MACINTOSH:6.0,6.0.1,6.0.1a
Platform          : MACINTOSH WINDOWS
Issue type        : kbprb

Last Reviewed: July 4, 1998