WD: "Header Record Delimiters" Appears Repeatedly in Mail Merge

• Microsoft Word for Windows, versions 6.0, 6.0a, 6.0c
• Microsoft Word for Windows 95, versions 7.0, 7.0a
• Microsoft Word for the Macintosh, versions 6.0, 6.0.1, 6.0.1a
• Microsoft Word 97 for Windows
• Microsoft Word 98 Macintosh Edition

SYMPTOMS

If a single field data file is in a paragraph delimited form, the dialog box

   Header Record Delimiters

NOTE: This information in this article applies only to data files that consist of a single field. If this dialog box appears when using a data file with two or more fields, there is an error in the header record.

CAUSE

This dialog is prompting you to select the character to separate fields and records in the data file. For example, in many multiple-field data files, a comma is used to separate each field and a paragraph (hard carriage return) is used to separate each record. In the case of a single field data file, there is no field separator.

This dialog box appears every time the data file is read during the mail merge process. Some of these instances include:

- Immediately after you select the data file name from the Mail Merge

  Helper Attach Data File screen

- After you close a file opened in View Source mode

Click OK to remove this dialog box from the screen in all of these cases. Clicking Cancel may cause Word to open the source file in View Source mode.

If you open the data file in View Source mode immediately after you cancel the Header Record Delimiters message, click the file and click Yes when prompted to save the changes. Clicking No and cancelling the Header Record Delimiters message breaks the link between the data file and main document.

WORKAROUND

Follow these steps to convert the data file to a single column table:

1. Open the data file.

2. On the Edit menu, click Select All.

3. On the Table menu, click Convert Text To Table.

4. Set Number Of Columns to 1 and set Separate Text At to Paragraph.

5. Click OK.