Hi ,

I haven't done much with mail merge and am having trouble figuring this
out (running word 2000):

I have to add an image containing codes to a mail merge doc for a
mailing machine that will vary based on page #. It needs a code to
indicate the first, last, and middle pages. The document will have at
least 2 pages. Ideally the image will be in the margin.

How do I determine if I'm on the first page, last page, or a middle
page?
How do I insert an image in mail merge?
Is there a way to force something to go in the margin?

Are you familiar with the result of a mail merge (to a new document)? If
not, generate one so that you can follow along a bit:

Mail merge creates a new section for each record. The page numbering will
restart for each of these sections. You should be able to see this by
paging through the result and observing the status bar.

Conceivably, you could do something with a combination of IF, PAGE and
SECTIONPAGES fields, but I'm not sure how mail merge would handle it
(whether it would be able to correctly process the field codes before
unlinking them, or whether it would unlink them at all).

The other route would be to automate Word (use a programmed VBA macro) to
step through the pages, checking the current page number, and inserting
the appropriate picture.

In the first case, you'd need to use a FRAME (from the Forms toolbar) in
order to position the object in the margin.

In the second case, you could use a frame or format the graphical object
with text flow formatting. Possibly, you could store these as AutoText
entries and insert the AutoText.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

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