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Express mail merges in Word 2002 and 2003If you’ve tried to rerun an existing merge or create a new one in Word 2002 or 2003, you’ll have discovered that Office XP revolutionized mail merging with the Mail Merge Wizard. There are some very neat new features that ease the task for beginners, but if you’re an accomplished merger and just want to set up a simple merge as quickly as possible, here’s how. Customize the Mail Merge toolbarAs explained in Customizing Word 2002, you can avoid the Mail Merge Wizard by using the Mail Merge toolbar. The first thing to do is to add the familiar Merge Fields menu back to the toolbar.1 To do this:
Alternatively, select Insert Merge Field 4 from the list of commands in the Mail Merge category on the Commands tab of Tools | Customize and drag it to the Mail Merge toolbar. If you have previously used the Mail Merge Helper and prefer to continue using it, it is still available in Word 2002 and 2003. You can add the Mail Merge Helper button () to the Mail Merge toolbar (or any other toolbar) from the Tools | Customize dialog. Find the MailMergeHelper command in the All Commands category on the Commands tab. You may also want to add the Start Mail Merge button (), listed as simply “MailMerge” under All Commands in the Customize dialog. This button opens a dialog that allows you to choose to merge to a new document, the printer, email, or fax; filter and sort your database; suppress blank lines (or not); and set query options. The capability to merge to Outlook also isn’t available in the Mail Merge toolbar by default. To add this capability, drag the MailMergeUseAddressBook command (from the All Commands category in Tools | Customize) to the toolbar. (Note that it uses the same data-linking method as in previous versions of Word, not the new Word 2002 OLEDB functionality.)2 Note that the Mail Merge toolbar is not displayed by default when you open a mail merge main document. There is a MailMergeToolbar command under All Commands in Customize, so you could add a toolbar button to display this toolbar, but the button does not have a default icon, so you would have to select or create a button image.3 Set up the main documentWith just a few clicks you can set up your main document. The following procedure assumes that you already have this document (or a blank document you intend to use) open and also that you have already created your data source; if you haven’t, there’s no “express” way to do that!
Perform the mergeYou can preview the effects of your merge for a single record using the View Merged Data () button on the toolbar. When this is satisfactory, you can then complete your merge using the buttons at the right end of the toolbar (Merge to New Document, Merge to Printer, Merge to E‑mail, Merge to Fax) or the Start Mail Merge button. That’s all there is to it. Much quicker than fighting your way through the Mail Merge Wizard! ________________________________ 1This gets around the fact that the Mail Merge Recipients dialog is modal (you can’t step out of it and edit your document while you’re inserting fields). If you would prefer to have a modeless UserForm that displays all your mail merge fields, you can find it in a template prepared by Word MVP Cindy Meister. 2This article is intended primarily for relatively simple merges from within Word (or possibly Excel). If you are merging to Outlook, it is generally preferable to start the mail merge from within Outlook (Tools | Mail Merge), as this allows you to have access to all Outlook fields and to use the records in the current Outlook view. 3If you would like the Mail Merge toolbar to be displayed automatically when you open documents based on a specific template, you can copy the AutoOpen macro in Cindy’s template. 4If you’re having trouble with number and/or date formats from Excel or Access data sources, you’ll want to link to the data in the way Word 97 and Word 2000 did. Go to the General tab of Tools | Options and activate “Confirm conversion at Open.” After you select your spreadsheet or database in the Open Data Source dialog box, you’ll be presented with a list of data link methods. Choose DDE (or ODBC if you used to use that). 5For very large databases you will definitely want to use this button and avoid the Mail Merge Recipients dialog entirely, for two reasons. One is that the dialog is very slow to open if your data source has many records. The other is that a data source with more than 286 fields will crash Word when you try to display them in this dialog. This article copyright © 2002, 2004, 2009 by Suzanne S. Barnhill. |