Cross Referencing Mailmerge Bookmarks

[Brian]

Hello,

I posted this in another forum before I saw this one, so please excuse
the re-post.

I have an application using OLE built in PowerBuilder that does a mail
merge
using Word 2003. I am using bookmarks to insert things like first
name, last name, address, etc. This works fine if I only want to merge

each bookmark once. After reading many of these posts I discovered
that what I want to do is then cross reference that bookmark any number

of times.


However, I am unable to get the bookmarks to print anytime other than
the first. I have a bookmark named fname. My original bookmark prints

fine as "Charlie". However, when I cross reference to fname and run
the merge, my second instance displays "fname". I have tried the ctrl
+ A and F9 trick and right clicked on the new reference and clicked
update, and still no luck.


Is the problem that Word cannot cross reference to a value that is
programmatically set? I have clicked tools | options | print | update
fields, but no luck.


Any ideas?


Thanks,
Brian

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

Bookmarks will not survive the execution of a mailmerge. Instead of using
them, just insert the mergefields in the other locations at which you want
the data to appear.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[Brian]

Hi Doug,

Thanks for you reply. I guess I used the word mailmerge a bit
casually. I have an app that uses an oleobject that opens a word doc
behind the scenes and looks for specific bookmarks. It works fine for
each bookmark, but I am unable to cross reference to that bookmark in
the event I want to have the firstname to appear twice in the document.
So it appears that the bookmarks are surviving the execution step, but
I can only use those values once.

Thanks,
Brian

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

Instead of using bookmarks, I would use DOCVARIABLE fields and have your
code assign values to the variables and then update the fields in the
document. That way, you can have as many of each DOCVARIABLE field as you
want.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP