Mail Merge in Microsoft Word - Suppress/Prevent Blank Lines for Missing Data Fields | 2 Ways to Fix

When you’re doing a mail merge in Microsoft Word (see this video: • How to Create LABELS i... ), it’s common to have missing data, such as a company name or an “address 2” line. In these cases, you don’t want a blank line to appear on your label (or letter or envelope), but you want it to be skipped entirely.
In a hands-on tutorial, I’ll show you two ways to get around this issue.
00:00 - Dealing with missing data for a mail merge in Microsoft Word
00:41 - Setting up a new mail merge document for labels in Microsoft Word
02:07 - Where the problem begins with the blank lines
02:53 - FIX #1: Finding and replacing blank lines in the final merged document (after the fact)
04:18 - FIX #2: Updating the merge field to remove the extra line at merge time (before the fact)

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Did this work for you? Let me know below in the comments!

[@MargaretMcGivern]

On the Tools menu, click Mail Merge. In the Mail Merge Helper dialog box, click Merge. ONCE YOU ADD THE TOOL TO YOUR TOOLBAR, HERE IS HOW YOU USE IT: You must select the main document and data source for the merge before doing step 2. In the Merge dialog box, under When Merging Records, click either: Don't print blank lines when data fields are empty. -or- Print blank lines when data fields are empty. Click Close in the Merge dialog box, and then click Close in the Mail Merge Helper.

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

@MargaretMcGivern - THANK YOU!! This Mail Merge Helper seems to be what I remember from years ago, when there was an easy option to not print blank lines. I might have to do a new video. Really appreciate you posting all the steps here! :)

[@MargaretMcGivern]

@@TinyTechnicalTutorials Sure thing. It really is a flaw in Microsoft Word and they should have the mail merge helper as a default menu item as well!

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Agreed!!!

[@wayneskladal4959]

I work with addresses that have up to five lines. If there are two lines in a row that are missing, I end up with a space in the address. Pulling my hair out on this one. Your video has helped get me started!

[@TheUtube666]

For such a common and basic problem that people encounter quite often, I'm sure, I find it amazing that in 2021 Microsoft still requires so much manual intervention! You would think it could be a simple option to check off or not - "suppress blank lines in address Y/N" and the program could make the adjustments automatically. It shouldn't be that difficult. That rant being said, thank you for the video. Quite helpful.

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

@TheUtube666 - I agree with your rant! :) I might be misremembering, but I seem to recall having that option when you did the final merge years and years ago? Maybe not, but I certainly can't find it in my latest version. What a nice checkbox that would be! Thanks for watching!

[@billinwilliamston]

Thank you! I swear Word used to suppress blank lines by default. Anyway, you're a lifesaver!

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

I know...I'm almost 100% sure it used to! Glad it helped! 🤓🌟

[@sboe4010]

THIS WAS SOOOOO HELPFUL... I would agree with a previous comment that with something that is as common as this is, you would think that there would be something more user friendly to accomplish this. Thanks so much!

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Glad it was helpful! Thanks for watching! :)

[@chrisbrantley_]

Fantastic! This is extremely helpful. Thank you so much!!!

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

So glad!

[@jenniferkyles2589]

Thank you so much! It worked and I love how easily it was to follow along.

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

You're welcome! Thanks for watching! :)

[@scottdoscher5607]

Love it. Worked great. Exactly what I needed. TY.

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Yay! I'm so glad it helped! Thanks for watching! 🌟🙏😊

[@Kimmy1783]

You ma’am are a Godsend! Thank you!

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Awww, thanks so much! :) Glad it helped!!

[@NickBoercker]

OMG thank you so much for this! Made my life so much easier!

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Oh, yay!!! I'm so glad it helped. Thanks for watching! :)

[@catherinebehan6659]

Thanks for this.

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

You bet!! Glad it helped. 😊

[@alyssasushoreba876]

This was super helpful, thank you! I had a list of addresses and some were company names, some were individual's names. So when I was doing the labels, any of them that had one and not the other had a blank line. A more primitive fix might have been to just enter the company name as either the first or last name but then my contact list wouldn't have been accurate. I was able to list the company name first when entering the merge fields and then followed your steps. Because first and last names are technically two separate fields, I had to make these changes to each of them. Then, when finishing the merge, I did the "find & replace" for the soft enters and replaced with nothing. It worked great! If there's an easier work-around for this, let me know. But this was the closest video I could find to what I needed to know how to do.

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Hi Alyssa!! 👋 Wow, look at you--awesome work! 💪 Yeah, this sounds perfect, given the data you're working with. Thanks for posting such a detailed explanation...I'm sure it'll help someone else in the future!

[@zkstipstricks2893]

Thank you so much ma'am

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

You're most welcome! 😊

[@gouravgarg8855]

Thank you so much. I was struggling for long time and am now very happy as this technique works perfectly fine

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Yay! So glad it helped! :)

[@gouravgarg8855]

@@TinyTechnicalTutorials would love to see more techniques as I am doing innovation in preparation of legal documents using mail merge and macro. Thanks

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

You bet! Happy to add more videos like this to my queue. Can you give me any more specifics/examples of what you're trying to do?

[@gouravgarg8855]

@@TinyTechnicalTutorials Sure, I would like to show you practicals if you are ok with connecting. I am generating bulk documents with Macro using mail merge. It automatically saves documents into the desired folder with a naming convention instead of mail merge, separating each page and manually saving it. Second thing: I use excel formulas to achieve conditional points and then map them with the word.

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Hey Gourav - Shoot me an email at [e-mail] and we'll see what we can do. :)

[@tonibuzzard9312]

Some of my envelopes have an Address2 line for PO Boxes and some do not. I found that in Match Fields I can change to 'not matched' for non PO box addresses deletes the blank line. Of course, I must change this back to Address2 when printing addresses with PO Boxes. Post office says if we have both street and PO Box we should use both.

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Ahhh, interesting tip! Thanks for posting this, Toni! 😊

[@deannadavoli]

Thank you for this easy to follow and helpful video!! I am having a problem that I cannot seem to find any resolution to online...maybe you can help me? I am using a Mac and when I create the mail merge for my labels. the "name, ste, street, city, state, zip" all show up and in each of the label spaces. However, when I go to preview results, it leaves every other label space blank. I have no idea why and I cannot some to find any discrepancies. It does list all of the addresses, it is just spreading them out. Do you have any idea how to fix this? or what is causing it?

[@deannadavoli]

Nevermind!! I figured out my problem...I had spaces on my Excel spreadsheet and forgot! duh me 🙃

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Glad you found the issue! :)

[@sparklebox11]

It doesnt hold it. When you open the document again, its back to the gap which in the exam, wont be acceptable. It will look like it wasnt supressed.

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Oh, interesting! When I save my doc, it seems to hold. I wonder what's going on? 🤔

[@caroleemoreno8086]

So how would I do this the exact opposite? I am using if then statement [IF {MERGEField Data} ="" "Show my text" . But, If the filed in my table already has data in it, I don't want to show that data. I want to show nothing and then have the blank line surpressed. I have tried \b \f switches and nothing works. Can you tell me how to do that????

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Hi Carolee! Just to make sure I'm following, and using an example with address info... This part is working with your if-statement: -If "Address 2" field in Excel is empty, then display "Show my text" (or whatever text) in Word You need help with this: -If "Address 2" field in Excel has something in it, then suppress the line in Word Did I get it right?

[@caroleemoreno8086]

@@TinyTechnicalTutorials yes, exactly!

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

@Carolee Moreno - Oh my! This one wasn't easy, but I think I figured it out. It'll be impossible to explain without a screenshot, which I can't do here in comments. Shoot me an email to [e-mail] and I'll send you what I came up with. :)

[@caroleemoreno8086]

@@TinyTechnicalTutorials just emailed you. Thank you so much for helping me!

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Hey @Carolee Moreno - I haven't received an email yet, but I had another idea. I uploaded a screenshot to Google Docs here: docs.google.com/document/d/1IAww8zqLYR6phRCfdEm1M5JsQLApq8szULchvPLYT98/edit?usp=sharing. I used "Address_2" in my example, but use whatever your field is called. Hopefully it makes sense! :)

[@frankconte467]

Do you know how to deal with Names that don't have a middle initial?

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Hi Frank! Yes, you can do this with similar steps, using Shift+F9 to get into the merge fields, and then F9 when you're done. Check out the instructions here (the March 5 posts are probably most helpful): www.wordbanter.com/showthread.php?t=46212. Let me know if you're able to get it working with these steps. If not, I can do a short video (sometimes it's hard to see all the spacing in written instructions).

[@frankconte467]

@@TinyTechnicalTutorials Thank you for your time. I will check it out.

[@mariannmatz9943]

This did not work on word 365

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Thanks for the comment, Mariann! There are so many different versions out there, it's hard to keep track. 😊 My version of Office is Microsoft 365 (on the desktop). Are you using it in the browser by chance?

[@MargaretMcGivern]

Easiest solution is to add the MAIL MERGE HELPER tool to the tool bar. Then you have the option you can click called Don't print blank lines when data fields are empty.

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Yes!!

[@angescott1455]

didn't work for me unfortunately

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Sorry to hear! Any specific issue?

[@lisaannberryhill8659]

I can’t find out how to create mail merge for Envelope when it will be going to 2 individuals at the same address with same last name. They are couples, but not “Mr and Mrs Scott Smith” Example-“Mr Scott Smith and Mr Roy Hemming”. How do we create this? THANKS IN ADVANCE to anyone who may assist me!

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Hi Lisa Ann! :) Does all of your data fit this same pattern? Are they all like “Mr Scott Smith and Mr Roy Hemming”? Or are some “Mr and Mrs Scott Smith” and some are “Mr Scott Smith and Mr Roy Hemming”?

[@lisaannberryhill8659]

@@TinyTechnicalTutorials Thanks - we have both! Couples who are married, couples who live together but aren’t married. Will we need to do 2 separate lists? SO Grateful for your direction!❤️

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Got it! Hmmm...it would probably be easiest to handle some of the separating/combining in Excel. For example, if the last name of Person 1 is the same as the last name of Person 2, combine them into a new column ("Full Names") with the format of "Mr. and Mrs. John Doe". If they're not the same, then combine them into "Mr. FirstName LastName and Mr. FirstName LastName." Then in your mail merge, you can just pull in the "Full Names" column, and it'll grab whatever you have in Excel. That might be oversimplified, and I obviously haven't seen your Excel setup. For the new Excel column ("Full Names"), you'd probably want to do some combination of the CONCATENATE and IF functions. If you're not familiar with those, here are some examples: www.ablebits.com/office-addins-blog/excel-concatenate-strings-cells-columns/ Hope that helps? :)

[@lisaannberryhill8659]

@@TinyTechnicalTutorials THANK YOU very much for your helpful and prompt response! I am so grateful for your expertise. Happy New Year!

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

You bet! Happy New Year! :)

[@Classiclifeltd]

how to increase ms word mail merge field limitation

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Hi Pikul! Can you give me a little more detail? I'm not sure I'm following. :)

[@Classiclifeltd]

During mail merge when we enter the column in excel. Here column IV is visible in mail merge, after that column is not visible. Example Excel column A,B,C....IV,IW,IX,IY etc Here A,B,C..IV ms word mail merge field visible but IW,IX,IY etc ms word mail merge field is not visible. how to over come its ms word mail merge problem.

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Thanks for the additional detail, Pikul! I actually hadn't come across this limit myself. It looks like this might be the solution you want? answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/word-merge-with-more-than-255-fields/c797b7f0-875d-487c-93dd-69c7adecc51d

[@lorimiller623]

\b "" Doesn't work for me.

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Hi Lori! 😊 It's a little hard to see formatting here in the comments, but I wonder if you're missing the "soft carriage return" between the quotes? Here's a screenshot of what it should look like when you're done: drive.google.com/file/d/1T0dH8Fh-CviLl97d5X8eqb5gccJcXRxv/view?usp=share_link. Hopefully that helps? Thanks for watching!

[@lorimiller623]

@@TinyTechnicalTutorials Thanks! I think what wasn't working for me was that I was also trying to suppress zeroes. (The field had a function in it that was blank but showed up in Word as 0). I ended up using an IF rule: {if{MERGEFIELD Address_2}"0" {MERGEFIELD Address_2 \b "↵"}}. I used some text for the then when making the rule, then replaced the text with the merge field.

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Ahhh...gotcha. Thanks for the update! Glad you were able to figure it out. 💪🤓