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csvms-wordrulesconditional-statementsmailmerge

How do I suppress blank lines in a Microsoft Word 2007 mail merge?

I'm setting up a mail merge file that reads from a CSV file. In the CSV file, there are ~20 Boolean fields that produce the body of the Word mail merge file. The problem is that if the first 19 fields are all "N", then the Word mail merge file will have 19 blank spaces and then output the 20th field underneath all of them. Is there any way to suppress the output of these blank lines using the built-in mail merge rules?

Here's the header and a sample row of the CSV file:

"firstname","lastname","PRNT1040","LEGALGRD","ACADTRAN","STUD1040","VERWKSIN","VERWKSDP","UNEMPLOY","SSCARD","HSDPLOMA","DPBRTCFT","DEATHCRT","USCTZPRF","SLCTSERV","PROJINCM","YTDINCM","LAYOFFNT","MAJRCARS","W2FATHER","W2MOTHER","W2SPOUSE","W2STUDNT","2YRDEGRE","4YEARDEG","DPOVERRD"
"Joe","Smith","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","N","Y"

Here's a couple lines of the mail merge file that I'm trying (image linked because copying and pasting of mail merge does not show original document)

msword_mailmerge

Does anyone know how to get around this? I tried placing the SKIPIF in front of the conditionals, but that doesn't work either.

Solution

  • We resolved the issue by changing the lines:

    { IF { MERGEFIELD PRNT1040} = "Y" "Write some text, then use a return line here " "" }

    Then we put those rules back to back instead of putting the line breaks after each rule inside the dialogoe box - for some reason, Word parses out the line break after you finish going through the IF -> THEN -> ELSE rules included in word's mail-merge options.