Word mergefield wildcard not correctly matching

Below is my mergefield code:

{ IF { MERGEFIELD Subs_State } = "GA" "blah blah" "{ IF { MERGEFIELD CEOrgStates } = "GA" "blah blah" ""} "}

I'm pulling records from a MS Access db. My goal is to check whether a record has Subs_State field matching "GA", or the CEOrgStates has the word "GA" (some records have stuff like "|FL|CA|GA|CT|KY|" (no quotes)).

When I merged the docs, Word doesnt seem to be able to match with the wildcards: If I use and compare "*GA" (fields ending with GA), it works; however, the double wildcards "*GA*" dont seem to work at all.

Here are the things I’ve tried:

• Have data in lowercase, then compare with lowercase


• Have data in lowercase, convert to and then compare with uppercase


• Do the opposite of the above 2 with uppercase data


• Use “*GA*” and “*ga*” (no pipe)


• Use different delimiters

Nothing seems to work with the double wildcard matching. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks!