Referencing cells within an embedded Excel object isn't exactly straightforward, mainly because Office provides no deactivation method. Besides which, it's not apparent how you'd propose to make this work in the context of a mailmerge, unless the mailmerge is itself a macro-driven process. In any event, if you want to shrink or expand text, why not use a table cell with the 'Fit text' attribute set?

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Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]