Losing Formatting in Merge

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Hi All,

When trying to merge letters locally, I noticed I am losing formatting and extra spacing is being added. Support claims that this is now out of scope. Anyone else experiencing this as they try this new workflow?

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  • Update: simple merges work fine, conditional get messed up

  • I have found that Word (365 license) is not suppressing lines when the field is blank. I have been using a switch (\\f) that has worked for me for about a year. It specifies that the text to be inserted following the merge field if the field is not blank.

    A sample merge field with this looks like this:
    (for anyone new to this: copying and pasting this will not work as you need to use ctrl F9 to insert the brackets for a merge field)

    { MERGEFIELD CnAdrPrf_Addrline3 \\f"¶
    "}

    Hope this helps and I'd love to know if there are easier solutions (always) – however, @Chris Snow it sounds like your issue may be different.

  • Austen Brown
    Austen Brown ✭✭✭✭✭
    Ninth Anniversary Facilitator 4 Name Dropper Photogenic

    Hi @Chris Snow - I recommend you check out KB Article #46272, it has some helpful tips & tricks to help with keeping formatting through a conditional merge. I recommend you start by switching out “MERGEFORMAT” with “CHARFORMAT” within your conditional statements and work from there.

    There was a recent posted on Facebook RE User Group that discussed changing the default style for the main document - before entering any conditional statements. I have linked the original post below - the suggested solution is listed in the third comment:

  • Dariel Dixon 2
    Dariel Dixon 2 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Seventh Anniversary Facilitator 4 Name Dropper Photogenic

    I am still having problems with Word adding the /MERGEFORMAT field after changing it to /*CHARFORMAT. On top of that, CHARFORMAT is removing all of the formatting, so none of my fields are retaining any special formatting at all. All of my emphasis and italics formatting is removed when I use CHARFORMAT, but MERGEFORMAT gives me inconsistent formatting, bolding things that are not supposed to be bolded at all.

  • I'm also having this issue and looking for a solution. Bold and italics aren't retained with CHARFORMAT and with MERGEFORMAT bold and italics are randomly applied.

  • I read this on FB and they said it worked. Im going to try it.

    make sure the template and the letters all have the same "style," and in the merge if-then-else, do NOT select keep formatting.

  • I'm now finding that conditional merges are not only getting messed up, they aren't even getting to the point of producing letters--I receive a random SQL error and nothing generates at the end of it, and no source data is retained. The attempted mail merge now fails for me about ⅓ of the time, so if I've marked the gifts as Acknowledged during the merge process, I have to go back and Unacknowledge the donation records, reboot Raiser's Edge and give the merge another attempt.

  • I tried @Patti Posey ‘s suggestion of unchecking ’preserve formatting during updates' when editing the field inside the {brackets}. So far, it seems to have worked. My bolds are bold, my italics are italic, and my soul is at ease…….for now. ?

  • Austen Brown
    Austen Brown ✭✭✭✭✭
    Ninth Anniversary Facilitator 4 Name Dropper Photogenic

    After successfully making it through this process and building a Multi-Conditional Merge, here is what I have found that works to keep formatting.

    • Before starting anything, edit the “Normal” Theme for your word documents, and make sure to select “New documents based on this template”
    • If MERGEFORMAT or CHARFORMAT are included in your conditional statements, remove them. I found these prevented the formatting in my templates from appearing in the final merge doc (formatting = bold and italics).
  • Austen Brown:

    After successfully making it through this process and building a Multi-Conditional Merge, here is what I have found that works to keep formatting.

    • Before starting anything, edit the “Normal” Theme for your word documents, and make sure to select “New documents based on this template”
    • If MERGEFORMAT or CHARFORMAT are included in your conditional statements, remove them. I found these prevented the formatting in my templates from appearing in the final merge doc (formatting = bold and italics).

    I second this recommendation! I was having formatting issues as well until I changed the “normal” format setting to the correct formats.

  • Chris Snow:

    Hi All,

    When trying to merge letters locally, I noticed I am losing formatting and extra spacing is being added. Support claims that this is now out of scope. Anyone else experiencing this as they try this new workflow?

    I found because the word docs from RE are an older version of word it was messing with the formatting when I saved it and it updated to a newer version. To stop it from doing that, when saving I selected “maintain compatibility with previous versions of word” and I haven't had an issue since, but I've also heard this hasn't worked for everyone

  • I am so thankful for all the responses to this delimma! After months of cleaning up merged acknowledgement letters one-by-one, I finally got fed up enough to really troubleshoot and resolve this. For me, unchecking the “preserve formatting during updates” box worked. I found that doing this also automatically removed the /MERGEFORMAT code from each condition. And I didn't need to redo the master conditional merge document. Just clicked on each letter setup in the document, right-clicked to ‘edit field’, and unchecked the box. Now my letters have merged with all of my templates' formatting intact. I am thrilled!

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