The macros at the end of this page were developed from a series of macros produced by fellow Word MVP Doug Robbins, who also produced the core macro code for a method of intercepting Word's built-in 'Merge to a New Document' option, to merge a form letter merge document directly to individual Word documents, provided in the form of an add-in for Word. The latest version of this add-in will be available for download as a Word add-in template. The add-in has undergone many revisions. Please keep an eye on the What's New page for new releases.

This add-in is provided in two versions - a dot format template intended to work with Word from version 2002 and 2003, and a dotm format template for Word version 2007. 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 retains information required for the merge in a file called Settings.ini which is saved in the user's 'My Documents' folder. Finding a location that would suit the requirements of all users, which would work in both the 2003 and 2007 versions, and which would always be available has proved something of a trial.

The add-in began by using the root of the C:\ drive, as that tends to be universally available, but many networked business users reported that their organisations did not provide write access to this location. Similarly the Word Startup and Template folders have been tried, but again business users do not always have write access to these locations.

The add-ins are designed to save a letter merge document to separate document files for each record. They do 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 are options to select the template from which the document was created. If for some reason, that template is not available, then the functions create 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-ins also include 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.

In Word 2007 a pair of command buttons is added to the Mailings tab on the ribbon.

In Word 2002/3 this function is activated from a toolbar button. The toolbar should be displayed the first time you run Word with the add-in present.

Initially the toolbar will be displayed in the document space.

If you don't require the function you can close the toolbar, by clicking the X on the title bar of the toolbar, and re-activate it as required from View > Toolbars.

When run, the macro checks for fatal errors and will produce one of the self explanatory messages shown below, should such an error be apparent.

If the document's attached template is already SplitMerge.dot(m) then you will get the following error message and the application will quit:

If all is well you will see the following dialog:

or

or if following the Step by Step Mail Merge Wizard

Whichever Word version is employed, you are then presented with the usual means of choosing which records to merge. Complete that and click 'OK'

The macro code then takes over to offer the choice of merging to separate documents or continuing with a merge to a single document.

If you choose separate documents, you are offered the list of available fields from your data file.

The Word 2007 version, additionally offers the user the choice to save the split files in one from a variety of formats. The Word 2003 version saves the files in Word Document *.doc format.

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.

If a record does not have an entry in the field chosen above or contains a character that would result in an illegal filename, a warning message is displayed which shows the content of the record in question and provides the option to name the document associated with this record or use the default name NoNameNumber# as shown in the illustrations below. Note that the illustrations below are from a different data source than that shown above.

If you click 'Yes' in the above dialogs, the following screen will take your filename input.

There is no need to add .DOC to your choice of filename.

For the purpose of demonstration I used the following data file, which has a single field 'Name' with one missing and one duplicated filename.

This produces the following files. Note the results for the duplicated and missing files.

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

With Word 2007 if Adobe Acrobat's Adobe PDF 'printer' driver is available, the merge will only use Acrobat if the Office 2007 PDF plug-in is not available. The merge to PDF is by default performed in conjunction with the Office 2007 PDF plug-in from Microsoft. The macro detects whether the plug-in is installed by looking for EXP_PDF.DLL file in the folder %programfiles%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\OFFICE12, 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.

Word 2003 version

The Microsoft Office 2007 plug-in is used for preference because it is more configurable than the Adobe 'printer' driver used by the splitmerge add-in. The Acrobat versions compatible with Word 2007 do however 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 6

Acrobat 7

Acrobat 8

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()
' Macro created 16-08-98 by Doug Robbins to save each letter created by a
' mailmerge as a separate file.
' With minor modifications by Graham Mayor 10-02-03
Dim mask As String
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"
     ActiveDocument.Sections.First.Range.Cut
     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

     ActiveDocument.SaveAs FileName:=DocName, FileFormat:=wdFormatDocument
     ActiveWindow.Close
     Counter = Counter + 1
Wend
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
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 & LTrim$(Str$(Counter)) & " " & MyName & ".doc"
     ActiveDocument.Sections.First.Range.Cut
     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
     ActiveDocument.SaveAs FileName:=Docname, FileFormat:=wdFormatDocument
     ActiveWindow.Close
     Counter = Counter + 1
     Application.ScreenUpdating = True
Wend
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.

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"

     ActiveDocument.Sections.First.Range.Cut
     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
     ActiveDocument.SaveAs FileName:=Docname, _
     FileFormat:=wdFormatDocument
     ActiveWindow.Close
     Counter = Counter + 1
     Application.ScreenUpdating = True
Wend
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.

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 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