Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated August 10, 2024)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Word in Microsoft 365
When you use Word's merge tool, the information merged into a main document assumes the formatting applied in that main document. The formatting of information in the data source has no effect. Most of the time this is a desirable thing; the information in the data source could have some bizarre formatting that you don't want applied in your main document.
There are times, however, when this may not be desirable. For instance, say one of the merge fields is a company name, and you want some of the companies to be shown in bold in your main document, and other companies to be shown in regular text. Even if you make some of the companies bold in the data source, Word ignores the formatting when it does the merge with your main document.
Unfortunately, Word doesn't provide a magic switch that you can use with the company merge field to force the formatting in the data source to be used. This can be worked around with a little ingenuity and the use of Word's conditional IF field. Follow these steps to achieve the desired results:
At this point, the entire compound merge field should look like the following. (If you can't see all the merge fields for some reason, select the text and press Alt+F9.)
{ IF { MERGEFIELD FormatBold } = "yes" { MERGEFIELD Company } { MERGEFIELD Company } }
Of course, the first occurrence of { MERGEFIELD Company } will be bold, and the second will not. What this field does is to check the contents of the FormatBold merge field. If it is set to "yes" then Word inserts the first Company MERGEFIELD (the bold one), otherwise the second (nonbold one) is inserted. Either way, some of your merge documents will have the company name bold, and others will not.
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (11278) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Word in Microsoft 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Formatted Merging.
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