Hi Tom,

That's a bad data layout. You really should have one row per record,with a separate column for each field, thus:
Surname, Given Name, Initials, Addr Line 1, AddrLine 2, Locality, State, Country, Zip, Phone 1, Phone 2, etc
That way, you have complete discretion as to which parts of each record get merged (and where) in the document. The above layout
would, for example, allow you to put the initials in the addres block, but to personalise the body of the letter with the given
name. Some of the fields are options (eg Initials), depending on how rich your data are, and others can be left empty if there are
no data for them.

--
Cheers
macropod
[Microsoft MVP - Word]


"Tom" wrote in message ...
I have a spreadsheet in excel 2003. In cell a1 I have a name for
example:Smith,Lisa
In cell B2 I have an address and a phone number
for example
1234 Anywhere st
Akron,Ohio 44332
330-555-1212

I need to eliminate the phone number from the second field in order to use
it as the basis for a mail merge
In other words I only want the street, city and state left without the phone
number

I can't figure out how to do that successfully. The street
then the city state and zip
and finally the phone are on different lines in the same field

Can you put me in the right direction? Thanks so much