Microsoft in all its wisdom can make life really annoying at times. I use Microsoft Excel to store my addresses. The Excel people really do make that part of life more convenient. Importing these addresses into Word Mail Merge has been relatively straight forward using older versions of Microsoft Office. However, in Office 2007, Word Mail Merge now defines the format of a field on import instead of inheriting the format from Excel. The unintended result is that Foriegn zip codes come up as a zero when imported.
The error comes when Word interprets your zip codes as numbers and tries to apply this conversion to all entries even the foreign zip codes that contain letters. When a non-numeric zip code is found, Word cannot convert it to a number and punts by simply replacing the offending zip with a zero. To remedy this, Microsoft Word allows you to define field formats when importing. For all the people out there that enjoy wrestling with field formats, quick searches on the web will find directions on how to do so.
However, before you spend a couple of hours trying to format your merged document, try entering a bogus address into the first row of your address book. Where the zip code should be, enter a string of characters like ‘abcdef’. Now, when Word imports your spreadsheet, it will convert your zip codes to words instead if numbers and your foreign zip codes will be printed correctly.
This works for all zip codes except ones starting with a zero like New Jersey zip codes.