Hi macropod, thanks for the reply.

I did try that initially, but I'm no expert with mail merge either so it may be that I didn't do it right! The problem I had was that if I told the mail merge to use the barcode font for that line, the end of line formatting character in Word gets included in the barcode font as well and the barcode won't scan. That's why I have three spaces in Arial added in after the last asterisk in the macro below, as this means the formatting character is in Arial as well and is invisible. I'm sure it's not the most elegant solution but it works! I tried to tell the mail merge to add those three Arial spaces after the asterisk but every time I copied the format across to the other cells in the mail merge they would disappear or turn into barcode font, meaning again that it wouldn't scan. If you're able to explain how I could make scannable barcode with a mail merge that would be brilliant! I don't really mind how I arrive at the solution as long as I get there