Wow, good catch Andrew! I did inherit this template, but don't remember if those underlines were programmed into the field or if I put them in and then forgot. Either way, it seems strange that they appear when I open a new document from the template, because the field is empty at that point. I thought the before/after text only appeared when the field had a value after merging. Perhaps they appear always until you do the mailmerge, then get removed if the field has no value? Anyway, thanks for the catch!