How to protect the main document in a mail merge process

[Antonio Ortiz]

I have a main document that needs to print for each id numbers filed in an
Excel Spreadsheet. I'm using mail merge but the problem is that due to
regulatory requirements I need to protect the main document during the mail
merge but if I do so in Word 2002 (MS Office XP Pro) the mail merge function
is not allowed. How can I perform this mail merge process maintaining
protected the main document. Is there is a waork around in Word? Is the new
Word 2003 have this capability? Is there is another MS or third party
software that provide this capabilities?

 

[Doug Robbins]

You cannot mailmerge to a protected document. If you execute the mailmerge
to a new document, you could run a macro over that document that separated
it into individual files and protected each of them. After all, it is the
result of the mailmerge that should be the issue, not the source.

--
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

 

[Antonio Ortiz]

The problem is that the regulatory document is the main one (source) which is
already approved and that I should prevent from inadvertend changes when a
clerk load it to mass print it through mail merge function with the id
numbers on each replication. If not, somebody will be required to verify
that replications are identical to the source and I don't want to do that and
put it in a written procedure.

 

[Doug Robbins]

Then use a macro to perform the mailmerge that contains in it the code to
unprotect the document so that the merge can proceed and reprotect it when
completed.

--
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

 

[Antonio Ortiz]

I follow you. I will work on it. Thanks!