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I thought it would after looking at the macro. You have saved me SO VERY MUCH time and angst! I have another question, but will start a new thread!

That is exactly what we needed. What can I do for you!? Thanks so much for writing the macro. Looks like some visual basic is involved. One question remains for me. If I need to create the same thing or similar for another merge document can I copy the macro and have it work? If not, how would it be changed? Seems like if position is the key then we should be able to use the same macro even if the fields to be merged are different.

With great gratitude, Judy Crawford

Thanks, Paul. I had read your tutorial prior to writing my question and I’ve read it again since getting your reply. I thought I was a pretty advanced user, but am overwhelmed on this one! Just a few more questions and comments.

I looked at Graham Mayor’s sites as well. I don’t think I want to go that route because I’m preparing these merge docs for other novice Word users to use on a number of different PC’s. I’ll try to use one of your options, so….

1. All of my records in the data source are for the same position. I’ve not gotten the user department to accept one data source with a “position” field added. However, If I can convince them that is better, I could put the Position field in the Heading so they wouldn’t have to manually insert each time. Any good arguments for maintaining one data source?

2. Since the page is only for one recruitment there is no break on a “key field” I just need to have a new line for every person. Do I somehow make Last_Name and First_Name the key? Is that a first and second key in your examples? I need the City, State and Zip Code in the same row, and a new row added with the same row formatting for each applicant.

3. So, once I get the fields to display correctly, I need to add the macro under Merging to Tables, right? I think I’ll need to add to the user’s Normal.dotm template.

4. How can I be assured that each row will have the same formatting with the same columns as the first row, with the necessary blank columns for the evaluator to place their comments, etc.? Will this macro work no matter how the table rows are formatted?

I’m sorry to be such a dunce on this one. I just want to get it right because the Personnel Department uses a number of tabled documents during a recruitment, and I’ll be able to create other main documents if I get one working correctly. It was easy in WordPerfect to create a Table List. We are just trying to eliminate the need for WordPerfect.

Just an FYI, I removed the Width in the #navbar2 earlier this morning. I saved the file, but didn’t see any changes when viewing the page in Mozilla or Chrome–the navigaiton still interfered with links on the top of the content sections. Now a few hours later, I tried again, and the links are available and can be accessed on Mozilla and Chrome. There must have been a delay of somekind on our server. Anyway thanks so much for your effort on this one. We all ENJOYED your post so much, Judy

I found the IE Tab addon, tried it and while the links now display correctly, the page looks very funky–content drops down below the Left navigation. I may temporarily redo pages to get links to work–that is re position them. It’s not a real fix, and I’ll need to redesign this page–the original designer isn’t in the picture now, so I’ll have to learn a bit more about css and design in general. Thanks for your thoughts and help, Judy

Thanks so much for your response. I can hear what you say, but I removed the width from the CSS but don’t see any difference in the underlying links. I need to learn more about the whole process. You can bet that any changes from now on will be designed around Mozilla!. I checked to see if the #navbar2 was anywhere else, but can’t locate it on another template or css. Wonder if maybe there’s another width setting that affects it outside of the #navbar2. I’ve got some learning ahead of me! I so appreciate you full discussion, and can now say amen to all you wrote. Your ideas on possible temporary fixes until I can get the page reworked will be appreciated. Thanks, Judy

The problem in FireFox isn’t with the left hand links on the menu. They all work fine. It is the hyperlinks that are internal on the page. See my response to roadrunner. Thanks, Judy

I was the designer on this one fortunately. It works great in IE. Now it’s my job to maintain and I don’t want to have to reconstruct the whole site. I’ll get the answer, but I’m learning that we first must make things work with FireFox and then it will likely work with IE. Again, appreciate your time. Judy

THanks so much, then the problem still exists. Am sure it is a CSS3 issue, but how to solve is another matter! Thanks for your time, Judy

I still don’t think you get what I’m asking sorry to be so bad it explaining. The question, on that Online Services page can you click on something like file Job Opportunities, or Assessor’s Parcel Data, from the links internal on the pages. Thats where we are having the problem. Not from the links on the left side. It’s the hyperlinks in the middle of the page. If yours works like mine the bottom one or two might appear as links, but the rest don’t even though they are hyperlinks and work in IE. Thanks much, Judy

Thanks muich, but can you click on the links say on the Online Services page, about half way down, Board of Supervisors – Agendas. On my Firefox I can only click on the last two items which are probably below the CSS reserved space. Hope you can on your version, J

Prior to reading your post, I did some further testing–the problem ended up being user profile related. I’ve deleted his profile and am waiting for him to return from sick leave. Am confident that the problem will be resolved. Another user can open the same file without problems on the suspect PC. So that led to the assumption that it was profile related, not software or file related. I’ll post once I have verified that the user can access the file successfully, Judy

Please note, the user returned to the office and was able to open the spreadsheet and all cells displayed correctly–the problem was resolved, likely was a registry issue with the old profile because I copied most of the App Data info into the new profile. Judy

That is my understanding. In our case something, that the user was unaware of doing. Cause some kind of format in the entire worksheet, that is all the way to the last possible row and column. This was a dramatic increase in size and hence an immediate impact on response time. Likely if you only increased on column there would unlikely be much of an impact. Maybe I’ll try it just for fun. Thanks for your post and reinteration of the problem.

Thanks, Rory. That likely would have worked. However, we’d found the answer late Friday afternoon, and I hadn’t had time to post it here. There is a Microsoft Add-In that when run cleanses out excess formatting on Excel spreadsheets.. We downloaded it and it worked great. In fact we’ve already shared it with our heavy Excel users just in case they need it in the future. Here’s the link:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/confirmation.aspx?FamilyId=ECFD076C-B873-48CC-B842-DA999C848C82&displaylang=en

I’d recommend that everyone put this in their arsenal of quick fixes. With this fix we didn’t even need to know the worksheet that had the problem, and that made it a timesaver because this spreadsheet had at least 24 worksheets! Thanks much, all.

Thanks much for writing. The senders may have been using gmail, but we can’t be sure. We just assured the user that the ellipses and truncation did not originate from her Outlook.