Word Mail Merge Fields

Question

I have not worked with Mail Merge fields before and everything I find requires you to select a data source prior to be able to insert merge fields. All I want to do is place fields on the word document and not merge it down until its consumed by the code. I essentially am creating document templates. How is this done in word?

Answer 1

I would follow this Microsoft article. If you don't have the data source available, I would simply create a dummy Excel/Access/data source with the fields that you will have. Word prefers to know what fields are available and you can change the source once your template document is built.

Answer 2

As Noah said, it is probably easiest to set up a dummy data source containing the available fields, especially if you haven't worked with Mail Merge before.

However, Word fields can be created completed manually. Press Alt+I and then F (on an English Word) to open the Insert Fields dialog (For Word XP/2003 you will find the same in the Insert menu, for Word 2007 the dialog is available from the Insert tab of the ribbon under Quick Parts). In this dialog you can select the mail merge fields and specify all relevant options, e.g. a field of type MergeField.

If you know the field code (and the relevant options) you can also insert the field directly by pressing Ctrl+F9 followed by the field code (Note that you can toggle the display of field codes using Alt+F9). This is a very convenient - albeit advanced - way when creating templates.