Pre-printed Form Check box

[kingswood]

Hello Forum, I've looked around a bit and cannot find examples of what I am looking for. I'm just learning about mail merge. Thank you in advance for assistance you may be able to provide.



I have an electronic pre-formatted Word form that I need to work with and I am not allowed to change it. I am using an Excel file as my data source. If a cell value has an "X", I need to place a corresponding "X" into a check box on the pre-formatted electronic form. So far, the other components of my mail merge are working. But I've run into an issue here. Is there a way to accomplish this? Again, your help is sincerely appreciated. Thank you.

[macropod]

Hi Kingswood,

I'm not sure to what extent you can't change things. If you can't change anything, then you can't insert the necessary field coding to generate the required output.

Assuming, though, you're allowed at least that latitude, then you can simulate a ticked/unticked checkbox via field coding like:
{SYMBOL {IF{MERGEFIELD CheckBox \* Upper}= "X" 254 168} \a \f Wingdings}
or a a checked/checked checkbox via field coding like:
{SYMBOL {IF{MERGEFIELD CheckBox \* Upper}= "X" 253 168} \a \f Wingdings}
where 'Checkbox' is the name of your data field and it contains 'x' or 'X' to indicate the ticked/checked state.

You can't actually populate a checkbox formfield, though (assuming that's what you already have).

[kingswood]

Hello Macropod,

You have helped me again. My solution is as follows:

Because I have to use the pre-formatted electronic Word form, I made a copy of it onto my desktop. I deleted the pre-existing check box Formfield, and replaced it with your solution instead. In the future, each time I have to complete this form, I'm simply going to use my version of the form. I'll have to create a reminder to first check and ensure that the global form has not changed. I don't anticipate it changing too often. It's a small price to pay and only takes about 2 minutes to check, but the overall time savings is worth the effort.

Thank you very much for your help! I wish I had known about Mail Merge years ago. This functionality would have saved me tons of repetitive effort. Thanks again!