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Word 2007 Mail Merge - Automatically open source document

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by dzn.daniel

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Hi Guys,
Is it possible to have word 2007 automatically launch the source document when starting a mail merge (the mail merge template is already linked to the source document)?

Thanks in advance
Daniel

4 replies

by thumbsup2

Can you tell us why it is that you would want to open the source document during a merge? The data to be merged is loaded into memory and opening the document would be in read-only mode so you couldn't edit it anyway. So, if you explain what you're trying to do, then maybe there's another way around it.

by dzn.daniel

This is a good point about the read only mode, so i guess it couldn't be dynamically updated that way anyway.
I can tell you that this is nothing that I want to do myself, rather a user has requested this, and I said I would look into it, although i didn't rather see the point too much myself.

by thumbsup2

No, it can't be dynamically updated that way, although they CAN edit the final merged documents to correct anything they overlooked before the merge. But, they'll still have to remember to go back and change the data to match what they corrected. So, they've then doubled their work.

Often users request the impossible because they're too lazy to get their act together and enter/correct the data BEFORE they start the mail merge. Tell them they'll save themselves a lot of tedious work if they'll just do things in the correct order! ;)

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