I have been using mail merge daily for several years as part of my job. A problem with matching fields has occurred and I am unable to resolve it.

Normally, I use a set of assorted letters and an excel data file, (FYI, the excel headers remain unchanged - only the name of the excel file and the data changes for each letter) - every thing had been running smoothly. Correct fields, perfect matching until recently.

I had a special one-time request to generate some labels (not letters) which required me to to match the field names in a different order.

Unfortunately, Word has remembered the special matching of field names and has incorporated them into my daily letters. Now each time I run a merge (which can be anywhere from once a day to twenty times a day), I have to re-match several fields. I have clicked on the check-box to "remember this field matching" but it still does not remember. I have even tried re-building a letter from scratch and it still wants to mismatch the fields. This happens in every letter I attempt to merge.

Aside from slowing down my work, I am afraid someday my fields will accidentally get sent out in the wrong order.

Has anyone had this problem or knows what the heck I am missing in order to fix this problem?

PS, I am running on XP and an older version of Word, my co-worker who has the same problem is running on a more recent version of Windows and the same older version of word.