Preventing saved mailmerge documents trying to update at re-openin

[Graham]

I create a large no. of mailmerge documents which I then have to save. I
usually then create .pdf documents from these to preserve the documents
accurately. However on occasion I need to re-open the saved Word document to
edit it, and it infuriatingly tries to re-open the original source document
and update the many fields within. Is it possible to break these links
between the saved merged document and the originanl source so that I can
always easily open the saved document complete with the info that I
originally saved!
Many Thanks

 

[Peter Jamieson]

If you are saving a copy of the mail merge main document (e.g. if you are
navigating to the record you want to merge, previewing, then saving, then
you really need to
a. save the document under a new name first (I think this is a bit safer as
you are less likely to damage your original mail merge main document)
b. select all (e.g. ctrl-A) and use e.g. ctrl-shift-F9 to replace (almost)
all fields by their results.
c. repeat (b) for each "Story" in the document that contains fields - e.g.
headers/footers. If you use fields in headers/footers etc. a lot, you may
need to use some VBA to do this.
d. (optionally) disconnect the data source - you can do that in Word
2002/2003 by enabling the mail merge toolbar, clicking the first icon, and
selecting the Normal Word Document option.

If you are saving a copy of a /merged/ document, it is less important when
you do (a) and there should not be a data source to disconnect, but you
still need to do (b) and possibly (c).

Peter Jamieson