This is written to give Graham a better idea of what it is I think you want to be doing. I use templates of primary merge documents like this to produce draft pleadings and letters for cases.

1. The templates are not stored as merge documents but as normal Word documents.
2. My vba creates a new document based on the template and then makes it a merge document linking it to the database.
3. It then has me pick the client and previews the merge to that new document. Note that this is still a primary merge document. (This method is frowned on by most experienced users.)
4. I edit and then switch the preview document back to a normal Word document with a macro. That macro also locks all the merge fields. You would not be editing first so this process could be included in the main macro.

This process could be done with a set of primary merge documents. I would likely use Graham's Document Batch Processes. I suppose there really is no need to use a template, just merge from the primary merge documents.

However, I name and save documents based on a combination of the document property "Title" and the date. It should also be possible to save a merge field or two as document variables in the new document and use those as well. I am unsure how I would do that. The processes for that are a Save intercept it the templates. If a completed merge were done rather than a preview, I believe the link to the intercept macro would be lost. It should still be possible to do but I have not tried it.

I am only doing one to three documents at a time, and seldom the same ones, so I do not batch process.