ASK and FILLIN fields in INCLUDETEXT documents do not merge correc

[ChrisM]

ENVIRONMENT:
OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 1 Build 2600
MS Word Microsoft Word 2002 (10.2627.2625) or
Microsoft Word 2000 (9.0.4402 SR1)

A primary mail-merge document includes text from another MS Word document;
that is, the primary/main document contains the includetext - something like
this.
{INCLUDEXT ANOTHER.DOC}.
ANOTHER.DOC contains a number of ASK and FILLIN fields. For example {ASK
MYCODE “Enter a code†\o} Or {FILLIN “Enter value†\o}.
The ASK and FILLIN fields are coded inside the ANOTHER.DOC with ask once
code (\o). When mail merge is executed the user is correctly prompted once
for
the ASK and FILLIN fields, but the result is incorrect because only the
first copy of the merged letter, the copy for datasource record 1 contains
the populated data from the ASK and FILLIN fields, and the subsequent copies
of the letter (for datasource records 2 to n) contain blanks in place of the
ASK and FILLIN field values. That is, the mail merge populates the ASK and
FILLIN fields with ask once switch for the first datasource record and fails
to populate the values in the subsequent records.
I am not sure if I am doing something incorrectly or discovered a limitation
(bug)?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Doug Robbins]

I think that is probably a limitation of the Ask and Fillin Fields. You can
probably get around it by doing an update fields on the mailmerge main
document before executing the merge and then unlink the Ask and Fillin
fields by using Ctrl+Shift+F9.

I would however avoid the use of those fields altogether, probably by using
a userform to ask for the information.

--
Please respond to the Newsgroup for the benefit of others who may be
interested. Questions sent directly to me will only be answered on a paid
consulting basis.

Hope this helps,
Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[ChrisM]

Thanks Doug,

I've google'd this for a while and have not been able to find an answer...
And I think you're right - this just seems a limitation of MSWord's ASK and
FILLIN fields.
I will need to find some work-around but I can not use forms (reasons too
complicated to get into here) - it must be a mail merge doc.

Thanks again.

 

[pbnyc]

Might also be related to <a
href="http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...202&catlist=&dglist=&ptlist=&exp=1&sloc=en-us">link</a>