This add-in is provided in three versions - a dot format template intended to work with Word from version 2002 and 2003, a dotm format template for Word version 2007 (also compatible with 32 bit Word version 2010) and a dotm template for Word 2010 (32 and 64 bit versions).

For earlier Word versions (97 & 2000) the macros included later on this page should provide an alternative means of splitting merge documents.

Extract the relevant template from the zip file to the Word startup folder, which by default can be found by typing

%appdata%\Microsoft\Word\STARTUP

in the address bar of your Windows Explorer application or browser. If you don't have write access to this folder, ask your IT support to install it for you.

++ Extract ONLY the required template

++ If updating from an earlier version of the add-in, remove the older version before starting Word!

The add-in is designed to save a letter merge document to separate document files for each record. It does this by creating a new document for each record. This works best when the new documents are created from the same template as the merge document, and included is an option to select the template from which the document was created. If for some reason, that template is not available, then the function creates documents using the normal template.

In some circumstances, this will result in documents that bear only a passing resemblance to the merge document. To minimise that possibility, the add-in also includes a macro that will create a template from the merge document and a copy of that merge document with the new template attached, which should be used to run the merge in place of the original merge document. The original merge document is unchanged.

If the split documents do not appear to match the original merge document layout, run this macro and then re-run the merge.

Word 2003 version

The add-in version offers the user the choice to save the split files in one from a variety of formats.

If the field contains the path to the folder in which you wish the files to be saved, check the checkbox. If not, enter the path in the dialog box where indicated.

You may also select the folder to store the merged documents by clicking the 'Browse' button, which offers the following dialog.

The add-in creates a series of new documents. It works best if these new documents are created using the template from which the merge document was created. If that template is not available, the new documents are created using the normal template. You can, if you prefer, use the normal template to create the documents, by un-checking the check box shown checked in the illustration above, or run the separate macro from the toolbar, as detailed earlier on this page, to create a version of the document c/w attached matching template.

Earlier versions of the add-in would prompt for missing filenames. This has proved a nightmare to code with the changes I wanted to effect, and was also rather irritating in its previous guise, where several records may have had illegal or missing filenames, so I have simplified the function. Now when the filename field is empty or there is an illegal character in the field (see list below), a dummy filename name is substituted. This name is in the format - "NoName Record Number", where Number is the number of the merged record.

Where fieldnames have duplicated content, the fieldname of the first matching record is named in the format "Filename" whereas the subsequent matching records have an incremented number appended e,g, "Filename(1)",  "Filename(2)" etc.

The illegal characters that the macro will not accept are,  :-    / \  : * ?" < > |

The Word add-in described above also provides the option to create PDF files.

With Word 2003 PDF file creation requires the availability of the Adobe PDF driver from Adobe Acrobat

With Word 2007 the merge will only use either the Office 2007 PDF plug-in or Adobe PDF driver if available. The plug-in will be available if Word 2007 is updated to SP2.

In Word 2010 The PDF plug-in should always be available, but the function to use Adobe Acrobat as an alternative, if present, is retained.

The macro detects whether the plug-in is installed by looking for EXP_PDF.DLL file in the folder %programfiles%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\OFFICE14 (OFFICE12 for Word 2007), which is the active part of the plug in. If it is not installed, the add-in then checks whether the Acrobat printer driver Adobe PDF is installed, and if available will print to that. If neither is available a warning message is presented and the merge is made only to the choice of document format.

The Acrobat versions compatible with Word 2007/2010 provide their own merge function which has greater functionality than is available from the Adobe PDF 'printer' driver or the Microsoft Office Plug-in, though not the ability to name the PDF files from the data source. If you have Acrobat installed, investigate this if you need to merge to PDF.

Acrobat 10 (earlier versions of Acrobat are similar)

If you create a merge letter and merge to a new document without accepting the option to split the merge, you get one long document with each of the individual 'letters' separated by a section break.

It is simple enough to print an individual 'letter' or range of letters by addressing the sections in the print dialog as in the illustration below

Having merged to a single document, it is still possible to split to separate documents, with the use of a macro. To this end Doug Robbins also came up with the following, to which I have taken the liberty of making a couple of small changes.

The macro splits the document and files each sub document into the indicated path - shown here in blue. The files are named by date and sequence number, with the date format from the mask - also shown in blue. Both these variables can easily be changed to reflect personal preferences - nor should it be too difficult for those with vba programming skills and inclination to modify the code to prompt for a name and/or path.

Sub Splitter()
' Based on a Macro created 16-08-98 by Doug Robbins to save each letter created by a
' mailmerge as a separate file.

Dim Mask As String

Dim Letters As Long
Dim Counter As Long
Dim DocName As String
Dim oDoc As Document
Dim oNewDoc As Document
Set oDoc = ActiveDocument

oDoc.Save
Selection.EndKey Unit:=wdStory
Letters = Selection.Information(wdActiveEndSectionNumber)
Mask = "ddMMyy"
Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdStory
Counter = 1
While Counter < Letters
     DocName = "D:\My Documents\Temp\Workgroup\" & Format(Date, Mask) _

     & " " & LTrim$(Str$(Counter)) & ".doc"
     oDoc.Sections.First.Range.Cut
     Set oNewDoc = Documents.add

     'Documents are based on the Normal template

     'To use an alternative template follow the link.
     With Selection
         .Paste
         .EndKey Unit:=wdStory
         .MoveLeft Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1
         .Delete Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1
     End With

     oNewDoc.SaveAs FileName:=DocName, _
        FileFormat:=wdFormatDocument, _
        AddToRecentFiles:=False
     ActiveWindow.Close
     Counter = Counter + 1
Wend

oDoc.Close wdDoNotSaveChanges
End Sub

As an alternative, the following macro provides the opportunity to provide the fixed portion of the filename and to change the path of the saved files:

Sub SplitMerge()
' Macro created 16-08-98 by Doug Robbins to save each letter created by a

' mailmerge as a separate file.
' with modifications by Graham Mayor 16-06-03 & 08-10-04
Dim Title As String
Dim Default As String
Dim MyText As String
Dim MyName As Variant
Dim MyPath As String

Dim Letters As String
Dim Counter As Long
Dim docName As String
Dim oDoc As Document
Dim oNewDoc As Document
Set oDoc = ActiveDocument
oDoc.Save
Selection.EndKey Unit:=wdStory
Letters = Selection.Information(wdActiveEndSectionNumber)
Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdStory
Counter = 1
Default = "Merged"
MyText = "Enter a filename. Long filenames may be used."
Title = "File Name"
MyName = InputBox(MyText, Title, Default)
If MyName = "" Then
     End
End If
Default = "D:\My Documents\Test\"
Title = "Path"
MyText = "Enter path"
MyPath = InputBox(MyText, Title, Default)
If MyPath = "" Then
     End
End If
While Counter < Letters
     Application.ScreenUpdating = False
     docName = MyPath & MyName & " " & LTrim$(Str$(Counter)) & ".doc"
     oDoc.Sections.First.Range.Cut
     Set oNewDoc = Documents.Add

     'Documents are based on the Normal template

     'To use an alternative template follow the link.
     With Selection
         .Paste
         .EndKey Unit:=wdStory
         .MoveLeft Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1
         .Delete Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1
     End With
     oNewDoc.SaveAs FileName:=docName, _
        FileFormat:=wdFormatDocument, _
        AddToRecentFiles:=False
     ActiveWindow.Close
     Counter = Counter + 1
     Application.ScreenUpdating = True
Wend

oDoc.Close wdDoNotSaveChanges
End Sub
 

Note that as a merge document may contain hundreds of letters, this macro can take a while to run, as each document has to be opened and saved, but you should end up with a folder full of files as shown below (derived from the first code example):

This is easier said than done, as once the document is merged the data file no longer forms part of the merge letters. There are a couple of approaches that may be considered, but the one I favour requires the field to be used as the filenames to be added to the top of the merge letter on a line of their own. When merged, the fieldnames will be those first lines of the merged letters. The macro then removes the lines to restore each merge letter to its required format during the splitting process.

Sub SplitMergeLetter()
' splitter Macro modified to save individual letters with

' information from data source. The filename data must be added to

' the top of the merge letter - see web article.

Dim sName As String
Dim docName As String
Dim Letters As String
Dim Counter As Long
Dim oDoc As Document
Dim oNewDoc As Document
Set oDoc = ActiveDocument
oDoc.Save

Selection.EndKey Unit:=wdStory
Letters = Selection.Information(wdActiveEndSectionNumber)
Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdStory
Counter = 1
While Counter < Letters
     Application.ScreenUpdating = False
     With Selection

          .HomeKey Unit:=wdStory
          .EndKey Unit:=wdLine, Extend:=wdExtend
          .MoveLeft Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1, Extend:=wdExtend

     End With
     sName = Selection
     Docname = "D:\My Documents\Test\Merge\" & sName & ".doc"

     oDoc.Sections.First.Range.Cut
     Set oNewDoc = Documents.Add

    'Documents are based on the Normal template

    'To use an alternative template follow the link.
     With Selection
         .Paste
         .HomeKey Unit:=wdStory
         .MoveDown Unit:=wdLine, Count:=1, Extend:=wdExtend
         .Delete
     End With
     oNewDoc.SaveAs FileName:=docName, _
        FileFormat:=wdFormatDocument, _
        AddToRecentFiles:=False
     ActiveWindow.Close
     Counter = Counter + 1
     Application.ScreenUpdating = True
Wend

oDoc.Close wdDoNotSaveChanges
End Sub

Where a merged document consists of several elements e.g. the first page of each merged letter should be printed on letter headed paper from a different printer tray, or the printer provides a stapling function for each 'letter', a frequently encountered problem is that the printer loses track of the tray assignments or in the case of the stapled document, the whole merge is treated as a single document. To overcome this problem, fellow MVP Doug Robbins, with whom most of this page has been a collaborative effort, came up with a macro that treats each letter as a separate print task.

Sub SplitMergeLetterToPrinter()
' Macro created 16-08-98 by Doug Robbins to print each letter created by a
' mailmerge as a separate file.
Dim Letters as Long

Dim Counter as Long

IMPORTANT!! Several of the macros featured on this page create their new split documents by using the default Normal template as a basis for the documents. If the merge source document has been created from a different template, with different margins or page size, the resulting split documents are not going to match the layout of the merge document. To overcome this issue, you could create an empty template, by deleting the content of the merge source document and save it as a template, then base the split documents on that template.

The following macro will create a template from the merged document called splitmerge.dot(x) which it will store in the default user template location.

To use the splitmerge.dot(x) template in the examples above, locate the line

Documents.Add

and replace it with

Sub CreateSplitMergeTemplate()
Dim sTempPath As String
Dim sQuery As String
Dim sRestore As String
Dim sATemp As String
Dim oSection As Section
Dim oStory As Range
Dim oMergeDoc As Document

If Documents.Count = 0 Then
     MsgBox "No document present!" & vbCr & _
     "Open the merged document and run this macro again", _
     vbCritical, "Merge Template Creator"
     Exit Sub
End If

Set oMergeDoc = ActiveDocument
If InStr(1, oMergeDoc, ".dot") Then
     MsgBox "Active document is a template!" & vbCr & _
     "Open the merged document and run this macro again", _
     vbCritical, "Merge Template Creator"
     Exit Sub
End If

sTempPath = Options.DefaultFilePath(Path:=wdUserTemplatesPath) & Chr(92)

With oMergeDoc
     If Val(Application.Version) = 12 Then
          .SaveAs FileName:="SplitMerge.docx", _
          FileFormat:=wdFormatXMLDocument
     Else
          .SaveAs FileName:="SplitMerge.doc", _
          FileFormat:=wdFormatDocument
     End If
     sRestore = .FullName
    

     For Each oSection In .Sections
          oSection.Range.Delete
     Next oSection