Hi Huw5,

What you want is a mail merge, yes, so you'd be in the correct group.

The problem is that mail merge requires your data to be structured in a
particular way. What database people call a "flat table". For example, you
can create a table in a Word document an put the data in like this:

NAME | Address
---------------
Hello | 56 poo rd
-----------------
John | 100 main st

That is, the field names and each data record in its own row. Each field
in its own column.

Rather than putting the data into a table, it could also be in a delimited
format. This is structured the same way as a table, but you can use any
text character to separate the field information, and a paragraph mark to
separate the fields. Example:

Name;Address
Hello;56 poo rd
John;100 main st

What Word cannot do is link up to data in the format you show us, where
the field names are on the left, and (most likely) each data record is in
a block, one under the other.

i have text in one word file, that i need transferring into another word
file

i'm hoping there is an easy method for automatically inserting the data
elements into the other word doc, e.g.


word file 1 (stores the data)
============

NAME: hello
ADDRESS: 56 poo rd

============

run a macro of something, and data is transferred into the below file.

word file 2 (collects the data)
===========

the name is hello, and address is 56 poo rd.

===========


any simple way of doing this???.....macros etc....
don't really want to get into vb and dde if i can avoid it, but
hey if it's the only way then suppose i'll have to


Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Sep 30 2003)
http://www.word.mvps.org

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