# MS Word & Mail Merge

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-word-mail-merge/573814>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 7, 2011, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-word-mail-merge/573814 "2011-03-07T18:36:55Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![NoCoolUserName](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5fc32e/32.png) [@NoCoolUserName](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NoCoolUserName)\
**Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-word-mail-merge/573814/1 "2011-03-07T18:36:55Z")

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Using Word 2007, I’m trying to create a document that will list a bunch of books. The list is in a tab separated file. I’ve inserted an Excel spreadsheet into the doc and put the fields I want in the spreadsheet cells. That’s all working fine.

My question: When there’s a different number of book entries in the input file, how do I prevent the blank cells from printing? I only want as many spreadsheet cells as there are records.

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**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\
**Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-word-mail-merge/573814/2 "2011-03-07T19:40:30Z")

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I vaguely recall an option in there somewhere called “skip blank records”. Try it again, and watch for it near the end, just before the actual merge occurs.