MailMerge FormLetters & Macros/Forms

[Alan UK]

We have a template letter as a doc file with a dat file
providing a mail merge- this being populated from third
party software.
The template letter contains macros and forms, which we
want to be in the FormLetter- which we understood would be
a temporary copy of the template. We have already had to
remove the bookmarks and replace these with macrobuttons
so that they can survive the merging process, but are now
stumped by this unexpected functionality.

Can anyone provide a way for macros and forms to be
present in the FormLetter, as a result of being in the
template doc?

 

[Peter Jamieson]

I think the only way you will have a chance of doing this will be to write a
macro to perform the merge, and use the Application.OrganizerCopy method to
copy the material from a template to your output document.

Never tried it myself though.

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi Alan,

We have a template letter as a doc file with a dat file
providing a mail merge- this being populated from third
party software.
The template letter contains macros and forms, which we
want to be in the FormLetter- which we understood would be
a temporary copy of the template. We have already had to
remove the bookmarks and replace these with macrobuttons
so that they can survive the merging process, but are now
stumped by this unexpected functionality.

Can anyone provide a way for macros and forms to be
present in the FormLetter, as a result of being in the
template doc?

Stumped by what "unexpected functionality"? Can you describe
the process and how the end result is to be used, so that we
can consider approaches for you?

Which version of Word is involved?

Have you already read the Knowledge Base article available on
microsoft.com about retaining form fields during a mailmerge?

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Sep
30 2003)
http://www.word.mvps.org

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[Alan UK]

We use Word 2000.
The unexepected functionality (for us at any rate) was
the very limited copy that a form letter makes, ie no
macros, bookmarks or forms from the source document.
Having said that this information has not been easy to
find - we appear to have made an unusual mistake.
Having looked into all the possibilities, and in view of
our aims, it would appear that creating a new template is
probably the best option- although any macro
functionality will still need to be called from the
toolbar rather than initiated on the completed merge of
certain documents.

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi Alan,

We use Word 2000.
The unexepected functionality (for us at any rate) was
the very limited copy that a form letter makes, ie no
macros, bookmarks or forms from the source document.
Having said that this information has not been easy to
find - we appear to have made an unusual mistake.
Having looked into all the possibilities, and in view of
our aims, it would appear that creating a new template is
probably the best option- although any macro
functionality will still need to be called from the
toolbar rather than initiated on the completed merge of
certain documents.

Mmmm. Bookmarks - no chance there, except recreating in the
end result

Form fields - I posted a link to a macro possibility in my
last reply

Macros - If the template from which the main merge document
was created contains macros, they should be available to the
result document. The only problem is, the "connection" isn't
quite complete when the merge finishes execution. But IF you
use a macro to perform the merge execution, then it can
explicitly attach the template, which will make macros,
toolbars, etc. immediately available on completion of the
merge. Does that help you at all? (I'm afraid I'm still not
quite clear on where you're "stuck"...)

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Sep
30 2003)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any
follow question or reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail