The \b and \f switches tell Word what to insert before/following the field if it isn't empty. So, if the MI field has anything in it, a space will be inserted!

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

I think we are missing something in our dialog. Here is an example

John A. Smith
Bob Jones

Obviously my merge must have a field for first name, middle initial and last name. John A. Smith will work fine, unless I follow your example and after toggling the field to add the switch I delete the space in the merge fields, which will result in either JohnA. Smith or John A.Smith, neither of which is good.

If I don't delete the space then I end up with Smith appearing fine but will get Bob Jones, and in some cases I am even getting an extra space so it will read Bob Jones. Since this all needs to go to print I can't have multiple extra spaces. Maybe this is just something that is not possible to do?