Outlook XP and Word MailMerge

[Sue]

Why is it that when I go to insert the fields to include
all the info I want in my merge document from a contacts
folder for a merge mailing of envelopes, I find that
the "Job title" field is "not available" and if I try to
insert it, nothing will appear in that field because I
can't find it in the "Match Fields" section. It's there
in the "Address Fields" but I can't get it to appear in
the document because I can't bring it up in the "match
fields" part. Basically, I can't put anyone's job title
in their address and I do need to do that. So apart
from putting the job title in another field which means
changing all contacts individually in the outlook file,
can't think what else to do. I think "Middle name" has
the same problem.

 

[Peter Jamieson]

The fields available when Outlook is your data source depend (unfortunately)
on the way Word connects to Outlook. In Office XP there are two main
methods:
a. start Outlook, select a Contacts folder, then use Outlook Tools|Mail
Merge to initiate the merge (which can use an existing Word Mail Merge Main
document. Although you do not usually see it, this option exports the
selected contact info. to a Word document which is then used as the data
source. This option provides more of the fields in Outlook than option (b),
and would typically allow more flexibility in record selection etc. since
you can use Outlook views to filter in various ways.
b. in Word's Mail merge Wizard, check the "Select from Outlook contacts"
button and go through the process of selecting a specific contact folder.
This uses a completely different method to get the data (in fact it uses the
OLEDB Outlook Provider to do it), does not provide as many Outlook fields as
option (a), and in some cases uses different names for the fields it does
provide.

To get both Job Title and Middle Name, you have to use option (a).