My goal is to create an automated process that will perform a mail merge using a template and an Access table?

The data source for the template will always be a table in Access for example tblPetition. The user selects a Defendant in the Access database and Access performs some complicated procedures to gather and calculate all of the information necessary to print in a document. We are unable to work with the document directly in Access because the user needs to be able to modify the document once it is created and save the document as a Word document. Therefore, we created Word mail merge templates to create a number of different legal documents. Each document has its own table in Access that is the datasource for a Word mail merge template.

Before I worry about why the macro isn't picking up a data source, I need to figure out how to save a Word document from the merged data that isn't always looking back to the data source as it will always be changing.

Example: In Access I have chosen Mickey Mouse and a table is created with all of the information about Micky Mouse. Then I double click my Word template (Petition.dot) (This is the only way I know to "open a document based on a template") and a Word document opens based on that template. The document is linked to this table and displays all of the inserted field information in the appropriate places to create a document about Mickey Mouse. Then I choose Merge to a New document, current record and save the document as MickeyMouse.doc where the user may make further modifications. When I test this now, and open MickeyMouse.doc after it has been saved, it still wants to open the SQL data source. I don't want the saved document to be linked to a data source because the record in the data source will constantly be changing. I may need to create a document about Donald Duck next.

So, my first question is when you save a new document that was created from a mail merge template, why would it ask me for the source each time? I want it to save the document with the actual data and no longer look for a link. Is that possible?

Thank you.
Brandi