On a quarterly basis I generate about 500 letters from data in MS Access reports. There are 20 different reports, each report based on varying criteria. I need to “sort” all of the letters by customer name.

Currently, I export the report data into rtf (Rich text Format) files; then pull the files (INSERT-FILE) into a Word document that has the graphics in the header and footer, margins set, etc.

I then manually flag each customer name as “Heading1” and generate a ToC. Once the ToC is generated I can go into Outline View (VIEW-OUTLINE) and sort the letters. This manual step is time consuming and prone to errors.

Is there a way to “automatically” format the customer name with Heading1? The name always follows the date on the letter. Perhaps a macro of some kind? I tried using Find/Replace but it doesn't recognize the imported text unless I change it all to "Clear Formatting".


I appreciate any and all suggestions.


Krazy (Bill) Kasper