5. ASK Field and FILL-IN Fields

There are a number of reasons why you might use these two word fields in your mail merge. These include:

- If there is information that you need in your letter but which is missing from your original data source, you can use these two fields to enable you to include the information in your letter.

- You might want to alter the information in the letters but not have to update the original data source

- The data you want to include might be different for each addressee

- You might want to enter data directly into the merge yourself

 

FILL-IN Fields

You would use a FILL-IN Field if the information is only going to be entered once in each document

FILL-IN Fields:

will prompt you to enter the required text

the response is printed in place of the field

the data you entered can only be used once

ASK Fields

You would use an ASK Field if the information is going to be repeated several times in each document.

ASK Fields:

will prompt the user to enter the information and store it in the document

are used for variable information not available in the data source

can be used in many locations - for example it could ask your name and then use it several times in the document