Nesting or Link Merge Forms together?

[EHPorter]

I create a number of documents (mostly legal pleadings) that have
standardized settings. For example, a pleading will contain:

the caption -- which contains merge fields, but is the same in each document
the body -- contains merge fields, and is different in each document
the signature block -- does not contain merge fields and is the same in each
document.

Ideally, I would like the caption to be a separate document, which was
inserted into each pleading and then merged. The reason for this is that if
I change the format of the general caption, I now have to open each and
every document that contains a caption and make the change one by one. I'd
like to have a master "merge caption" that I could modify only once, and
which would show up in all pleadings.

The same is true with the signature block. Any time I change my address or
telephone number (which doesn't happen often, but does happen), I have to
change it in each and every merge form. I'd like instead to have only one
signature block file, which was automatically inserted at the end of each
merged document.

Thank you for any advice you can provide.

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

I think that you can probably achieve what you want by having the caption
and the signature block in separate documents and incorporate them into the
body document by the use of INCLUDETEXT fields.

--
Please post any further questions or followup to the newsgroups for the
benefit of others who may be interested. Unsolicited questions forwarded
directly to me will only be answered on a paid consulting basis.

Hope this helps
Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[EHPorter]

That you. It looks like INCLUDETEXT would work perfectly for the signature
block. A question regarding the caption, however. The caption itself would
contain merge codes, for things like plaintiff name, defendant name, county,
etc. Would INCLUDETEXT both insert the caption and cause it to merge with
the existing specified set of records?

Thanks.

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

Do the mergefields in the caption and the body share the same datasource.

I have just done a test here, and if they do both share the same datasource,
the mergefields that are incorporated into the document by the INCLUDETEXT
field that brings in the (bookmarked section of the) caption document, do
work as expected.

I would not even bother trying if there are two separate datasouces
involved.

--
Please post any further questions or followup to the newsgroups for the
benefit of others who may be interested. Unsolicited questions forwarded
directly to me will only be answered on a paid consulting basis.

Hope this helps
Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[EHPorter]

Thank you -- that is what I needed to know. Right now, they do not share
the same datasource. But, since I use Access as the datasource, and both
tables are in the same database, I think I can combine them in a query and
use that as a datasource for everything. Just running a few tests, this
seems to work.

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

That would be the way to go. As you are using Access however and as I would
imagine that these documents are produced one at a time (i.e. not really a
mail merge where you create many at the one time), I would probably not be
using mailmerge for it.

Having said that, even though the following information does use mailmerge,
you might be interested in the information concerning a one-click word merge
for ms-access on fellow MVP Albert Kallal's website at:

http://www.attcanada.net/~kallal.msn/msaccess/msaccess.html


--
Please post any further questions or followup to the newsgroups for the
benefit of others who may be interested. Unsolicited questions forwarded
directly to me will only be answered on a paid consulting basis.

Hope this helps
Doug Robbins - Word MVP