Pioneer Training

Say for example, you have a data file with Address 1, Address 2, and Address 3. When you add the fields to your merge document, they look something like this:

«Address 1»
«Address 2»
«Address 3»
«City», «State» «Zip»

When you do the merge, if a record does not have a second or third address line, the result is something like this:

101 East Street

Anytown, US 12345

Rather than what you want:

101 East Street
Anytown, US 12345

The problem is that the default Normal style adds 10 pts of space between two paragraphs. When Word encounters a blank line with a space after value in a mail merge, it keeps the paragraph mark. The solution is to format the address fields with a style that does not place a space after each paragraph:

1. You could use the Word 2003 style set. (Change Styles | Style Set in the Styles group on the Home tab.)
2. You could create a new style called something like Normal No Space and format it to have 0 pt Spacing After each paragraph.
3. You could also use the Don’t add space between paragraphs of the same style checkbox in the Paragraph dialog. Make sure to select only the list or this option will change the style for your entire document. (Paragraph dialog in the Paragraph group on the Home tab.)
4. You could format the address lines and manually specify 0 pt Spacing After each paragraph. (Paragraph dialog in the Paragraph group on the Home tab.)

This shouldn’t be happening, but at least there is a solution.