Thanks. I have made some progress and can now do most of what I wanted to do. The main thing I am stuck on is how to use a document that already exists , already has merged fields placed in it, and run again from the same excel file (with same field names).



For example, if I have a document that looks like

had a little whose fleece was white as .


and I added merge fields as indicated below

«First_Name» had a little «Animal» whose fleece was white as «Substance»


After I have run this mail merge and a week later want to run it again, how can I use it without having to again select the merge fields? If I pull up the document used a week ago, it seems to populate from the previously completed merge, I want to run the same mail merge with same fields but updated contents from the excel sheet.

Hmm, since the data source has been updated, you should be seeing the correct data when you complete the merge. What displays in the "main" document (to which the merge source is attached) when you open it is not a reflection on the result of the merge.

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional