ask/ref field left blank

Question

If the user does not answer an {ask} field, when the {ref} statement appears, the mailmerge fails.

How can I tell Word to just leave the ref blank and not fail?

Answer 1

No, I am not referring to the \d switch. Even if you use that with some meaningful content, but the user deletes that and leaves an empty result, you'll get the errors that are now occurring.

When you use an ASK field, it creates a bookmark - but only if you provide an non-empty response. Your REF fields are generating errors because, when you give no response to the ASK prompt, the bookmark doesn't get created. The solution is to ensure the bookmark exits. You do that by either of the two methods I suggested.

Answer 2

Maybe I'm not understanding. It sounds like you are referring to the \d default switch. But I'm trying to accomplish this:

When the ASK prompt appears during mailmerge, if the user leaves it totally blank, when the mailmerge hits the REF field, it just leaves it blank instead of creating the dreaded MailMerge Errors screen.

Answer 3

I don't know that there's any doco regarding the bookmark behaviour when you use ASK fields in mailmerges. However, the issue is that, until the ASK field has had a non-empty answer, it won't create its bookmark. So there are two ways of resolving that:

1. use Ctrl-A, F9 to trigger the ASK field, and insert a non-empty answer. Then do the same again but insert an empty answer; or
2. with the insertion point either inside the ASK field, or somewhere else in the document that isn't in a field, and with nothing selected, as such, use Insert|Bookmark to add a bookmark that the ASK field uses to the document (e.g if the ASK field is coded {ASK BkMk "Your prompt text" \o}, you use Insert|Bookmark to add a BkMk bookmark).

Answer 4

Thank you.  Is there some kind of documentation on this? I have never used bookmarks and am not clear on this.

Answer 5

To prevent mailmerge calculation & cross-referencing errors, simply make sure the mailmerge main document contains an empty bookmark with name used by the ASK field.