Microsoft KB Archive/51837

Word Err Msg: “Data Record Too long” with Correct Comma Count

PSS ID Number: Q51837 Article last modified on 03-07-1997

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========================================================= 3.00 3.01 3.02 4.00 5.00 5.10 MACINTOSH kbprint kberrmsg

= SYMPTOMS =

In versions 5.1 and earlier of Microsoft Word for the Macintosh, you may receive the error message “Data Record Too Long” during a print merge even though the correct number of commas or tabs have been inserted outside the quotation marks.

= CAUSE =

The problem may be caused by one of the following:

  There is a space between a closing quotation mark and the comma or tab separating the fields in the record. (Word considers any space or character following the quotation mark to be a field delimiter. This additional field will cause an additional field error.) Note: In version 4.0 of Word, the record in question will be highlighted. To resolve this problem, remove the excess character or space and run the print merge again. Note that this problem will not occur if the document in question is created using Word’s table feature (available in versions 4.0 and 5.0).   There are quotation marks within a field in a tab-delimited data document. For example, if you specified a nickname “Buddy” in the data document by typing: name address “Henry”Buddy&quot; Tyler&quot; 123 Main St. To correct this problem, use an extra set of double quotation marks in the field. For example, to specify the nickname “Buddy” you would type: name address “Henry”“Buddy”&quot; Tyler&quot; 123 Main St. Note: There is a documentation error on page 621 of the version 5.0 “Microsoft Word User’s Guide” that implies that single quotation marks can be used with a tab-delimited data document. This information is incorrect. 

= STATUS =

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Word for the Macintosh versions 5.0, 5.1. This problem was corrected in Word for the Macintosh version 6.0.

KBCategory: kbprint kberrmsg KBSubCategory: kbmerge Additional reference words: macword5 3.0 3.00 3.01 3.02 4.00 5.0 5.00 quotes macword ====================================================================== ============================================================================= Copyright Microsoft Corporation 1997.