Mail Merge and Text Entry Form Fields

[ebaltz]

I have created a mail merge document which includes text fields for users to
fill in information. I want to set the limits on these fields and lock the
document so they can only input in the fields I have selected. However when
I complete the merge, the resulting documents don't have the fields in them
any more for text entry. The mail merge main document also does not allow me
to lock a document so i would have to do it on a per merged document basis I
gather. Any suggestions or solutions for this issue?

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

As you have discovered, the two features are incompatible.

An alternative would be to "roll your own" mail merge by creating a template
in which you insert {DOCVARIABLE} fields in place of {MERGEFIELDS}, then use
vba to iterate through the records in your datasource creating a new
document for each record and setting the values of the document variables to
the information contained in each record and then updating the fields in the
document. That can be done with the template protected for forms.

--
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

 

[ebaltz]

Or....MS could just make this possible in the next release.

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

This is not going to happen as Form Fields are being deprecated in the next
version of Word.

--
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

 

[ebaltz]

This is not going to happen as Form Fields are being deprecated in the next
version of Word.

And being replaced by what? Seems to be MS hasn't actually improved the
feature set of Word since version 2 became version 6.

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/286841/en-us

--
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