When I use data from Excel in an MS Word 2003 label mail-merge, the merged
fields appear on a grey background.
That is also the way it prints.
I must have messed up somewhere. But where?
How do I get the data to appear in black on a white background?
Thanks.
Roger

It is difficult to see how you have done this, but try adding a charformat
switch to the field(s)
eg {Mergefield fieldname \*charformat} This should force the field to be
formatted as the background text of the document ie the same as the format
of Mergefield.


--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org


Roger Giler wrote:
When I use data from Excel in an MS Word 2003 label mail-merge, the
merged fields appear on a grey background.
That is also the way it prints.
I must have messed up somewhere. But where?
How do I get the data to appear in black on a white background?
Thanks.
Roger

The grey background appears because under ToolsOptionsView, "Always" is
selected under the "Field shading:" pulldown in the "Show" section of the
dialog.

Your more serious problem however is that you are not actually executing the
mail merge, just previewing and printing the results in the mailmerge main
document. While that may be satisfactory in your case, it does lead to all
sorts of defiiciencies in the process which do not occur if the merge is
executed either to the printer or to a new document.

--
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

"Roger Giler" wrote in message
...
When I use data from Excel in an MS Word 2003 label mail-merge, the merged
fields appear on a grey background.
That is also the way it prints.
I must have messed up somewhere. But where?
How do I get the data to appear in black on a white background?
Thanks.
Roger

I wouldn't have thought that the field shading would have printed even if
your diagnosis is correct?

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org


Doug Robbins - Word MVP wrote:
The grey background appears because under ToolsOptionsView,
"Always" is selected under the "Field shading:" pulldown in the
"Show" section of the dialog.

Your more serious problem however is that you are not actually
executing the mail merge, just previewing and printing the results in
the mailmerge main document. While that may be satisfactory in your
case, it does lead to all sorts of defiiciencies in the process which
do not occur if the merge is executed either to the printer or to a
new document.

"Roger Giler" wrote in message
...
When I use data from Excel in an MS Word 2003 label mail-merge, the
merged fields appear on a grey background.
That is also the way it prints.
I must have messed up somewhere. But where?
How do I get the data to appear in black on a white background?
Thanks.
Roger