Can I create MailMerge template without a Data Source?

[Tom Mailhot]

In previous versions of Word up through 2003 I could create a Mail Merge
template document by attaching just a header file using the
WordBasic.MailMergeOpenHeaderSource command. That allowed an administrative
user to create the Mail Merge document prior to the actual selection of the
merge data.

With Word 2007 I can't find a nice way to do that. Word now seems to
require a data source also be attached before it will allow any merge fields
to be added to the document. One workaround I've found is that I can attach
the header file as both the header source and the data source. Anyone have
something more elegant they can offer?

Thanks!

 

[Peter Jamieson]

Anyone have

something more elegant they can offer?

Clearly I am not the person to give a positive answer, but...

Yes, support for Header Sources has been dwindling version by version.

However, what Header sources ever gave you, in effect, was a list of field
names and the facility to insert MERGEFIELD fields with those names into
your Mail Merge Main Document, without actually having to have any data
source or a even a particular type of data source. I suppose that if you do
not have Header Sources, you also lose the idea that users working with that
Mail Merge Main Document should /only/ be able to use the fields specified
in the Header source.

Other than that, as far as I can tell, that isn't very much different from
either
a. using your header source as an initial data source (although you might
need to put some data in your header source, e.g. by duplicating the header
row so every column has some text data)
b. setting up your mail merge main document fields using that data source
c. disconnecting the "header" source before you save the mail merge main
document, by clicking the Mailings tab, Start Mail Merge->Normal Word
Document option. You will lose any sort/filter options you set up.
d. letting the user choose the data source after they open the document.

or perhaps (a)+(b)+(d), assuming the user has a copy of the "header" source
and understands that they have to connect to the real data source instead.

 

[Tom Mailhot]

Thanks, Peter. I think you confirmed what I concluded after thinking about
it a bit more - using the header source as the data source when creating a
new template makes as much sense as anything.

My application automates most of the mail merge process so when the template
is actually used to create a form letter my app will create the header and
data sources, connect them to the document, start Word, and merge the data so
all the user has to do is review the resulting merged document and print it.
All that seems to to work fine, I was just have an issue figuring out how to
create a new template.