WD97: Accented or Extended Characters Lost in Mail Merge

If you use a text file (*.txt) as a data source for a mail merge, extended characters such as accented characters are replaced by symbols with no similarity to the expected characters. However, if you open the data source text file in the editor used to create the text file, the characters appear correctly.

This problem occurs when you use text files created in a Microsoft Windows-based word-processing program such as Microsoft Notepad or Microsoft Word.

In a text file, each character is saved as a numeric value. Windows-based programs usually use the numeric values in the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) character set. MS-DOS programs, however, use the numeric values from the ASCII character set, which does not include the extended characters. Therefore, MS-DOS programs use the OEM character set to define the extended characters.

When Word sees a text file as the mail merge data source, it assumes that it was created in an MS-DOS based program and translates the characters using the ASCII character set. As a result the extended (accented) characters are lost.

This behavior does not occur in Microsoft Word 2000.

To correctly use your text file (*.txt) as a Microsoft Word mail merge data source, use any of the following methods.

Method 1: Convert the Text File to Word Document Format

To convert the text file to Word document format, follow these steps:

1. Open the text file (*.txt) in Word. The accented characters should be visible.
2. Save the file as a Word document (*.doc).
3. Use this file as the mail merge data source.

Method 2: Convert the Text File to Microsoft Excel Format

To convert the text file to Excel format, follow these steps:

1. Open the text file (*.txt) in Excel. This starts the Text Import Wizard.
2. Follow the instructions in the wizard and then save the file as an Excel Workbook (*.xls) file.
3. Use this Excel file as the mail merge data source.

Method 3: Modify the Registry Entries for Word

WARNING: If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.


To change the default behavior of mail merge text import, modify one of the following keys in the Windows Registry.

1. Quit Word.
2. On the Start menu, click Run.
3. In the Run box, type "REGEDIT" (without the quotation marks), and click OK.
4. Locate either of the following registry entries:

      HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Jet\3.0\Engines\Text
   					

   -or-

      HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Jet\3.5\Engines\Text
   					

5. Click to select the CharacterSet entry in the right pane.
6. On the Edit menu, click Modify.
7. In the Value Data box, type "ANSI" (without the quotation marks) and press ENTER.
8. Quit the Registry Editor and start Word.

Word now assumes that all text files that you use as mail merge data sources come from a Windows-based program. Word therefore uses the ANSI character set to import extended characters correctly.

NOTE: Extended characters in text files that were created in MS-DOS-based programs will be imported incorrectly, since this workaround applies only to Microsoft Windows-based programs.