Ken,

When I first looked at Word 2003 Mail Merge, I felt that the user
friendliness from Mail Merge in Word 2000 was just not there any more for the
experienced users. I knew that when we rolled out Office 2003, I needed to
find a way for our users to be able to use what they were used to in Word 200.

Then I discovered that I could go into Tools, Customize and from the
Commands tab, I could select All Commands and then add the old Mail Merge
Helper to my Menu and to my Mail Merge toolbar. I also added the Insert
Merge Field to my Mail Merge toolbar. I knew that our users would like to
have that ability to use the old Mail Merge Helper. Also, note that the
first time we added the Insert Merge Field to the Mail Merge toolbar, it
would show a blank list when you clicked on it to insert your fields into
your main document. So what we discovered what that you have to drag it off
the toolbar and re-add it for it to work.

This may help you with your frustration with the new mail merge and
inserting fields.

Paula

"ken sunshine" wrote:

I'm new to Word 2003. Mail merge seems to be less user friendly.
1. In earlier versions of Word the mail merge toolbar had a drop down
"insert merge field" button which displayed a list of fields. You clicked on
a field and moved on. Now the equivalent button opens up a new window which
requires selecting the field, clicking OK, clicking close - 3 clicks instead
of 1. This is particularly annoying when entering a group of consecutive
merge fields on separate lines. The best way seems to be to open the merge
field window, insert all the required fields (2 clicks each), close the
window and then cursor along entering new line after each field.

2. When selecting the database you could specify a range name in your Excel
spreadsheet. I can't seem to be able to do this now

3. When selecting the database a list of records is displayed with check
boxes against each record. In one situation I get 30 real records and the
100 or more blank records picked up from the Excel database. I have to
delete all and then individually check the real records. I can't even select
a block of records (with click and shift click) as you can in most
applications.

Am I missing something or has mail merge actually gone backwards in
user-friendliness.
PS Please don't refer me to the wizard's block address facility.