Mail Merge with Word 2003 - editing fields in Mail Merge Document

[Gnibtay]

Please Help if you can. I have lost hours editing a Mail Merge Master
document, only to find none of the changes are saved when you reopen. Here's
what happened: I want to edit the fields in a mail merge document. I want
to search for the {OLD-FIELD} and replace it with the {NEW FIELD}. Word does
not seem to allow me to do this. First, it will not let me cut and paste the
fields into the Search & Replace Box. Secondlly, after hours of laboriously
replacing my Fields one at a time, and dutifully saving, NONE of the changes
were saved. The changes are all shown in the document while I'm editing it.
Then I save & close the edited document. When I re-open it it reverts to the
original. None of the changes have been saved! I have tested this a number
of times. It is not my error or my imagination. For some reason the Mail
Merge document does not save changes to the Fields. FYI, The document is NOT
protected either. Any thoughts? Thank you.

 

[John McGhie]

Without knowing which version of Word you're using, it's almost impossible
to help you.

I suspect that your original is a template. If it is, depending on how you
open it, Word will make a COPY of the template. If you then make changes to
the copy and save it, you will not overwrite the original, your changes will
be saved to a different file.

Carefully observe the file name of the file you are working on, including
its path and extension. Is that the same as the path, file-name, and
extension you are re-opening?

Cheers

Please Help if you can. I have lost hours editing a Mail Merge Master
document, only to find none of the changes are saved when you reopen. Here's
what happened: I want to edit the fields in a mail merge document. I want
to search for the {OLD-FIELD} and replace it with the {NEW FIELD}. Word does
not seem to allow me to do this. First, it will not let me cut and paste the
fields into the Search & Replace Box. Secondlly, after hours of laboriously
replacing my Fields one at a time, and dutifully saving, NONE of the changes
were saved. The changes are all shown in the document while I'm editing it.
Then I save & close the edited document. When I re-open it it reverts to the
original. None of the changes have been saved! I have tested this a number
of times. It is not my error or my imagination. For some reason the Mail
Merge document does not save changes to the Fields. FYI, The document is NOT
protected either. Any thoughts? Thank you.

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]