Mail Merges Using Word 2016, Access, And/or Excel

I have used mail merges for years. I would create a mail merge and use it to create 5160 Avery labels and then save the document with the merge fields in it, not the document it created to actually print the labels from. This data comes from an Access table and not all the fields have data in them. Year after year the labels were created correctly suppressing any blank field. Now I fear something has changed in Word 2016 and I don’t know how to fix it.



I have a merge that creates 5 pages of 5160 labels. The inserted merge fields includes 2 of which not all entries contain data, actually only about 10 entrees. The first 4 pages of labels are correct but on the last page the merge creates blank lines where the merge field is actually blank and they are not suppressed. This never before happened ever since I first started doing this on Office 97.



I created a few new test merges where I had 1, 2 and 3 pages of labels created. Always on the last page this problem occurred never on previous pages. If I only have 1 page of labels the problem does occur on that page. I used both Access and Excel as the data sources and the results are the same with this 1 exception. I have merge fields of “CITY” and “STATE” and I have always placed a comma following the CITY field, as I believe is common when addressing envelopes or labels. Using Access as the data source this comma does not print out on blank labels but using Excel as the data source this comma does print out on the blank labels.



Any ideas how to fix this problem?



Thanks.

 

I guess I was mistaken. I tested a few other merges I have had for years and some of them, even using an Access data source, print the commas on blank labels. This never before happened. Also I have checked and the option to "Don't print blank lines when data fields are empty" is chosen in these merges.