Doug,

Thanks for your input.

I have created another document with the merged fields and it works fine.

I have no idea why the other document persists with the gray shading.

Thanks again.

David

"Doug Robbins - Word MVP" wrote:

You are not executing the merge. Rather all that you are doing is printing
a preview of the result. If you execute the merge, there will be NO fields
in the resulting document and hence they will not appear shaded.

If you want to persist with printing a preview of the results, select
Options from the Tools menu and then go to the View tab and set the field
shading control to Never.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

"David Dolbec" David wrote in message
...
Office 2003 professional
I created a standard word document with merge fields from an access
database.
The merge fields appear with a gray shading. When I print preview they
still
show gray and when I print the gray shading prints.
The setting in Tools/options/view/field shading is set to never.

This is not a form; just a document.

Office 2000 does not show the shading but that is at a different location
so
I have to use Office 2003. Is there a bug in 2003?

David