[ramatsu]

I have created a set of Word letterhead stationery for hundreds of different
locations for one company. Each has about a dozen pieces of unique address
and footer info. I produced them from a master Excel worksheet with all the
address info, as form letters using MailMerge. (I merged each one
individually by incrementing the record number in the Mail Merge palette
Preview panel. I'm running Mac Word, so didn't even try getting into the
various VB scripts that might separate the long continuous doc that is
generated when you choose All in the Mail MergeMerge panel instead of
choosing Current Record to do them one at a time.)

The issue is that in doing the Mail Merge to create new individual
stationery documents, Word added a section break at the end of each document.
If that break is removed, the address info that was created when I generated
the form letters is mysteriously replaced by the original field names.
They aren't fields; just text displaying the original field names, including
double brackets. (BTW, the merge fields are in the header of the
document; the section break is in the body.)

The doc appears to be just a doc, not any kind of a mail merge source file,
so I've no idea how it even knows that the address data was generated by
fields in a mail merge, let alone what the names of the fields were. When I
check Mail Merge paletteMain Document panel, the Create menu there shows
Form Letters... Labels... Envelopes... and Catalogs, but the Restore to
Normal Word Document item is disabled.

Once the section break is deleted, the address info appears to be
permanently lost, replaced by the text displaying the field names.

I thought I'd try to force a reset of the doc's status as a normal Word doc,
so I chose Mail Merge paletteForm Letter..., at which point Restore to
Normal Word Document became available. I chose that item, but it didn't seem
to have any effect on the problem.

I tried to use Format Painter to copy the formatting of the section break
and apply it to the last paragraph mark (I tried both before and after
deleting the section break), but it didn't make any difference either.

Since the section breaks show up when Show/Hide paragraph markers is on,
it's a safe bet that a lot of the users are going to inadvertently delete it
at some point and be confounded that the address info in their header and
footer has been replaced by obscure codes that won't mean anything to them.
So by far the best solution is to "freeze" the address info as regular Word
text, disassociated from its Mail Merge roots. Is there some way I can do
that, so that when the section break is deleted, Word doesn't have anything
to change the info to?

Thanks,

Allen

[ramatsu]

Problem is solved - I re-did the mail merge, and for some reason the section
mark in the new docs can be deleted without causing the issue. I guess
"solved" isn't quite it, but at least it's not my problem anymore ;-)

"ramatsu" wrote:

I have created a set of Word letterhead stationery for hundreds of different
locations for one company. Each has about a dozen pieces of unique address
and footer info. I produced them from a master Excel worksheet with all the
address info, as form letters using MailMerge. (I merged each one
individually by incrementing the record number in the Mail Merge palette
Preview panel. I'm running Mac Word, so didn't even try getting into the
various VB scripts that might separate the long continuous doc that is
generated when you choose All in the Mail MergeMerge panel instead of
choosing Current Record to do them one at a time.)

The issue is that in doing the Mail Merge to create new individual
stationery documents, Word added a section break at the end of each document.
If that break is removed, the address info that was created when I generated
the form letters is mysteriously replaced by the original field names.
They aren't fields; just text displaying the original field names, including
double brackets. (BTW, the merge fields are in the header of the
document; the section break is in the body.)

The doc appears to be just a doc, not any kind of a mail merge source file,
so I've no idea how it even knows that the address data was generated by
fields in a mail merge, let alone what the names of the fields were. When I
check Mail Merge paletteMain Document panel, the Create menu there shows
Form Letters... Labels... Envelopes... and Catalogs, but the Restore to
Normal Word Document item is disabled.

Once the section break is deleted, the address info appears to be
permanently lost, replaced by the text displaying the field names.

I thought I'd try to force a reset of the doc's status as a normal Word doc,
so I chose Mail Merge paletteForm Letter..., at which point Restore to
Normal Word Document became available. I chose that item, but it didn't seem
to have any effect on the problem.

I tried to use Format Painter to copy the formatting of the section break
and apply it to the last paragraph mark (I tried both before and after
deleting the section break), but it didn't make any difference either.

Since the section breaks show up when Show/Hide paragraph markers is on,
it's a safe bet that a lot of the users are going to inadvertently delete it
at some point and be confounded that the address info in their header and
footer has been replaced by obscure codes that won't mean anything to them.
So by far the best solution is to "freeze" the address info as regular Word
text, disassociated from its Mail Merge roots. Is there some way I can do
that, so that when the section break is deleted, Word doesn't have anything
to change the info to?

Thanks,

Allen