Font size in merge fields changes when I do mail merge

Gracie Schild

Can somebody help me?  When I created new letters in my "Master Ack File" that contains all the letters I might need for gift acknowledgement (conditional merge), several of them went crazy with the formatting.  I managed to fix all the problems but one: the merge fields in the addressee, address, salutation, and gift amount in the text all appear in 12 point font size instead of 11 like the rest of the text.  Oddly enough, there are merge fields in 10 point in the "Gift Details" section, and they appear in the correct size, and that includes a repeat appearance of Gift Amount.  In the User Options, I set the default font and size as Ariel 11, but the merge fields simply refuse to cooperate.  Am I missing something in Word?  Any suggestions?

Lisette Depew-Kubie

Gracie Schild:

Can somebody help me?  When I created new letters in my "Master Ack File" that contains all the letters I might need for gift acknowledgement (conditional merge), several of them went crazy with the formatting.  I managed to fix all the problems but one: the merge fields in the addressee, address, salutation, and gift amount in the text all appear in 12 point font size instead of 11 like the rest of the text.  Oddly enough, there are merge fields in 10 point in the "Gift Details" section, and they appear in the correct size, and that includes a repeat appearance of Gift Amount.  In the User Options, I set the default font and size as Ariel 11, but the merge fields simply refuse to cooperate.  Am I missing something in Word?  Any suggestions?

I am having a very similar problem, the only difference being that I haven't changed a THING in my system (no new letters added), and worse, my letters are coming through the conditional mail merge problem with MIXED fonts in the body of the letter (not the merge fields!) They look nothing like the original letters I have loaded into the back end of the system! Also, despite looking fine in print preview, and no matter how many times I go through page setup/margins and reset them, the letters now print at the very top of my letterhead and are useless!! I have to manually highlight/reformat all the font type/font size, and then close out of MS Word completely, before re-opening the batches of letters to have them print correctly on the page. This has been the only work around I've figured out so far. This all started screwing up about a month ago, and for the LIFE of me, I can't figure out what's happening!! I'm going to watch this thread and see if others are suddenly experiencing problems with conditional mail merges.

Karol Devitt

Gracie Schild:

Can somebody help me?  When I created new letters in my "Master Ack File" that contains all the letters I might need for gift acknowledgement (conditional merge), several of them went crazy with the formatting.  I managed to fix all the problems but one: the merge fields in the addressee, address, salutation, and gift amount in the text all appear in 12 point font size instead of 11 like the rest of the text.  Oddly enough, there are merge fields in 10 point in the "Gift Details" section, and they appear in the correct size, and that includes a repeat appearance of Gift Amount.  In the User Options, I set the default font and size as Ariel 11, but the merge fields simply refuse to cooperate.  Am I missing something in Word?  Any suggestions?

 This happened to me when we updated our system.  Everything would be fine on the preview, then print crazy.  The only way we solved it was to get a newer printer.  We had an older LaserJet printer.  Now we print letters on our inexpensive Brother printer and reports, etc on the Laser.  The reports still get font changes on the 2nd pages, but that we can live with.

Nicole S

Karol Devitt:

 This happened to me when we updated our system.  Everything would be fine on the preview, then print crazy.  The only way we solved it was to get a newer printer.  We had an older LaserJet printer.  Now we print letters on our inexpensive Brother printer and reports, etc on the Laser.  The reports still get font changes on the 2nd pages, but that we can live with.

 I don't know the answer, but I have also had issues with fonts.  I thought that it was one particular letter, but I am seeing some things now that suggest otherwise.  While the size of my fonts isn't changing, the font is.  I've just learned to live with it for now with ctrl+a and changing everything to the font I want.  I'd like to recreate the mail function with all the letters, but haven't had time.

Gracie Schild

Gracie Schild:

Can somebody help me?  When I created new letters in my "Master Ack File" that contains all the letters I might need for gift acknowledgement (conditional merge), several of them went crazy with the formatting.  I managed to fix all the problems but one: the merge fields in the addressee, address, salutation, and gift amount in the text all appear in 12 point font size instead of 11 like the rest of the text.  Oddly enough, there are merge fields in 10 point in the "Gift Details" section, and they appear in the correct size, and that includes a repeat appearance of Gift Amount.  In the User Options, I set the default font and size as Ariel 11, but the merge fields simply refuse to cooperate.  Am I missing something in Word?  Any suggestions?

As I've been struggling with this (and working on new letters) I've thought of a couple things and had a hint from my training consultant. The hint first: if you have a list of all the letters in a conditional merge file (my "Master Ack Letters" Mail item), try moving the newest or most problematic one to the top of the list.  No logic allowed here, just try it.  The other thing that occurred to me after I read your posts was that there was an upgrade recently, so who knows what bugs they built in.  The entire Mail process is thoroughly counter-intuitive and overly complex and I'm NOT looking forward to setting up a new set of renewal letters for our museum membership folks, including embedded letterhead on the first page and a form with merge fields on the second.

I had the same problem with font changes, too, and it nearly drove me nuts. What I found was that I needed to set the "style" in Word when creaeting the document before I put anything else ont he page.  It seems to have stopped that problem. Margins are still a challenge.  We have a 2" left margin because of our letterhead, and if I put the margin in the RE/Word document, then copied and pasted the text from a non-RE Word document, I got 3" margins when I merged.  I didn't add the margin in the RE/Word document, so it looks wrong in the letter file but looks right when merged.  Why didn't I have this problem when I entered lor edited letters in Config?  The previous holder of this job didn't use Mail, he ran every ack letter from the gift record, so there was no need to have the letters in Mail. At this stage, I'm about to go back to that!!!

Gracie Schild

Gracie Schild:

As I've been struggling with this (and working on new letters) I've thought of a couple things and had a hint from my training consultant. The hint first: if you have a list of all the letters in a conditional merge file (my "Master Ack Letters" Mail item), try moving the newest or most problematic one to the top of the list.  No logic allowed here, just try it.  The other thing that occurred to me after I read your posts was that there was an upgrade recently, so who knows what bugs they built in.  The entire Mail process is thoroughly counter-intuitive and overly complex and I'm NOT looking forward to setting up a new set of renewal letters for our museum membership folks, including embedded letterhead on the first page and a form with merge fields on the second.

I had the same problem with font changes, too, and it nearly drove me nuts. What I found was that I needed to set the "style" in Word when creaeting the document before I put anything else ont he page.  It seems to have stopped that problem. Margins are still a challenge.  We have a 2" left margin because of our letterhead, and if I put the margin in the RE/Word document, then copied and pasted the text from a non-RE Word document, I got 3" margins when I merged.  I didn't add the margin in the RE/Word document, so it looks wrong in the letter file but looks right when merged.  Why didn't I have this problem when I entered lor edited letters in Config?  The previous holder of this job didn't use Mail, he ran every ack letter from the gift record, so there was no need to have the letters in Mail. At this stage, I'm about to go back to that!!!

Hooray!  I think I figured this out!  I was getting frustrated with some letters coming out in 12 point instead of 11, and, in other cases, just the merge fields in the text area (but not the fine print, oddly enough).  Tonight I fixed it!  Going through Mail and using my "Master Ack Letter", I got through to the list of letters and edited one of the offending letters.  I managed to make it stick by going to the Styles dropdown from Word and modifying the "No Spacing" style that I use for all my documents.  At the bottom of the first tab, it gives you the option of making it the defaul for all documents created with that style, and by checking that and then doing the Save and Return to RE on Add-ins, the letters came out exactly as I wanted.  I hope that does it!  for some reason, Word documents in RE don't pick up on the defaults I set in Word outside of RE.  Guess we have to do everything twice!  does anyone know where I can set the defaults for Word documents in RE generally?  Everytime I create a Word letter from the Constituent record, it comes out double spaced.

Kimberly Reynders

Gracie Schild:

Hooray!  I think I figured this out!  I was getting frustrated with some letters coming out in 12 point instead of 11, and, in other cases, just the merge fields in the text area (but not the fine print, oddly enough).  Tonight I fixed it!  Going through Mail and using my "Master Ack Letter", I got through to the list of letters and edited one of the offending letters.  I managed to make it stick by going to the Styles dropdown from Word and modifying the "No Spacing" style that I use for all my documents.  At the bottom of the first tab, it gives you the option of making it the defaul for all documents created with that style, and by checking that and then doing the Save and Return to RE on Add-ins, the letters came out exactly as I wanted.  I hope that does it!  for some reason, Word documents in RE don't pick up on the defaults I set in Word outside of RE.  Guess we have to do everything twice!  does anyone know where I can set the defaults for Word documents in RE generally?  Everytime I create a Word letter from the Constituent record, it comes out double spaced.

To remove the double spacing in Word, try this:  Open up the word document, On the Home Page ribbon, click on Change Styles. Click on Style Set,  and  Word 2003