Empty letter after finalizing a form letter

Last update: 4 August 2017

Summary

You may see an empty letter after you've finalized your form letter. If you try manually to finish the mail merge by pressing Finish & Merge ==> Edit individual Documents...

you may get this error message:

       Word found locked fields during the update. Word cannot update locked fields.

Information

There might be locked Microsoft Word fields (DocProperties, Mergefields, etc.) in your form template.

Solution

Open the series letter and unlock all fields by pressing CRTL+A to select the whole document and afterwards CRTL + SHIFT + F11 to unlock the fields.

Hint

To lock a field press: CRTL + F11

Applies To

• Microsoft Word 2003
• Microsoft Word 2007
• Microsoft Word 2010

Microsoft Visual Basic Macro to find the locked field

       Sub FindLock()

'

' FindLock Macro

'

Dim iField As Integer

Dim vResponse As Variant

For iField = 1 To ActiveDocument.Fields.Count

If ActiveDocument.Fields(iField).Locked Then

ActiveDocument.Fields(iField).Select

vResponse = MsgBox("Continue Searching?", vbYesNo)

If vResponse = vbNo Then Exit For

End If

Next iField

End Sub