[D Miller]

I apologize in advance if this sounds like a silly question.

Here is what I would like to do:

I have a merge document set up to create contracts for land acquistion. The (Excel) data source doc contains information such as name, address, land info, dollar amounts, etc. for upwards of 500 people. This information is constantly changing. Because the only current link is between the (Word)merge doc (contract) and the data source, the resulting contracts created from the merge, as well as a payment calculation sheet (Excel) - (which also happens to contain the line of data that is copied and pasted to the datasource Excel sheet for the merge), may or may not be updated by other random people when new information is discovered.

The problem is that, when we go to a different phase and a new contract needs to be created, the whole process has to be verified all over again as different people have updated information on certain documents but not in others. Because they don't understand how mail merge works, they don't understand the importance of updating the data in the right spot.

SO, my thought was that I would link the data line (that I had previously copied from each individual payment calculation and pasted into the data source worksheet) so that the merge document's data source is automatically updated when changes are made in the Excel payment calculation for each landowner. That would win half the battle.

However, what I would like to do is write the code into the merge document so that each record (contract) that resulted from the first an only merge would contain the proper link to the merge datasource (which would be automatically updated from the payment calculation sheet). So, when someone needs to take a contract out in the field, the can just open the word file in the location it was originally saved after the initial merge, tell it to update, and it would contain all the updated info - without having to actually run the merge again.

Is this clear as mud? Can anyone help. I thought I was pretty well versed in Office applications, until I had to create hundreds of documents with ever changing information. I feel rather "dense".