Special Edition Using Microsoft® Office XP

Troubleshooting

Keeping Track of Long Merges

Q1:

When running a long mail merge, I need to make sure that letters were printed for everyone on my Contacts list.

A1:

As you'll soon discover, long merges are a horse of a different color. You'll find it very useful to put a record number on each merged item so, for example, you can look and see if the printer swallowed form letter number 2,481. To place a merge record number on a document, bring up the Mail Merge toolbar (right-click an empty area on any handy toolbar and choose Mail Merge). Click wherever you want the record number to appear in the document, choose Insert Word Field on the Mail Merge toolbar, and select Merge Record # from the list. See the following section for a suggestion on ...