[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

If you press Alt+F9 and you see the field codes such as { MERGEFIELD
fieldname }, it means that what you have been sent is just preview of the
merge, not a document created by executing the merge. If that is the case,
the best thing to do would be to use Ctrl+A, then Ctrl+Shift+F9 to unlink
the fields from the data source.

There is an option under ToolsOptionsView to turn off the shading of
fields, but I would recommend the earlier suggestion in any event as if the
fields are updated and the data source is not available, you will loose the
data displayed in the fields.

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Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

"Dan" wrote in message
...
Hi,

i recieved a word (2003) document which is the result of a mailmerge.
My problem: all the fields (and their content) have a gray background. How
to remove it? I tried to do that in the normal way but it doesn't work.

The only way i found is to copy the whole doc into a txt file and then
importing it back to word.

Thanks
Dan