Automating Word MailMerge Won't Merge Images

[RMittelman]

So I'm trying to automate a Word mailmerge from Access. My code exports the desired record to a CSV file, then uses that file for the data source of a Word merge document.

Here is a snippet of the data source (I've trimmed out identifiable information and shortened the actual file contents)

"Heading","Address","City","State","Zip","Salutation","Paragraph1","Closing","Sig1","Sig1Type"
"Mr. and Mrs. John Doe","123 Main St.","Anytown","CA","99999","Dear John & Jane","Thank you for your donation.","Very Gratefully,"C:\\FTT\\Signatures\\Paula.png",1

The "Sig1" field is designed to be either a name (which will be printed in a script font) or the path to a signature image. If the "Sig1Type" field is 0, it's a signature. if it's 1, it's the path to a signature image.

Here is the merge field in the Word document:

{ if { MERGEFIELD Sig1Type } = 1 { INCLUDEPICTURE "{ MERGEFIELD Sig1 }" \d} { MERGEFIELD Sig1 } }

Here is my VBA code

    
With WordDoc.MailMerge        
    .OpenDataSource Name:=m_DataFile, ConfirmConversions:=False, ReadOnly:=False, LinkToSource:=True, AddToRecentFiles:=False, _
          PasswordDocument:="", PasswordTemplate:="", WritePasswordDocument:="", WritePasswordTemplate:="", _
          Revert:=False, Format:=0, Connection:="", SQLStatement:=sql, SQLStatement1:="" ', SubType:=wdMergeSubTypeWord2000
        
    .Destination = wdSendToNewDocument
     .MailAsAttachment = False
     .MailAddressFieldName = ""
     .MailSubject = ""
     .SuppressBlankLines = True
     .DataSource.FirstRecord = 1
     .Execute Pause:=False
        
End With

If Sig1 = "Paula" and Sig1Type is 0, it works as expected. If Sig1 is a file path and Sig1Type is 1, like the data above, nothing shows up in that field.

HOWEVER, If I open the merge document in Word, choose the "Mailings" tab and set the data source to the CSV file above, it works fine in both cases (signature or path to file) when I preview the merge in Word.

So something must be wrong with the VBA code above, right? It's been working just fine before my customer had the bright idea to use a signature image instead of a stylized signature text, such as "Paula".



Any ideas what's going wrong here? Thanks...

[June7]

If you want to provide files for analysis, follow instructions at bottom of my post.

[Gicu]

Here is how I used to do Word mail merge (similar to your approach, first exporting data to a csv to prevent Word from interacting with Access directly):

Set WordApp = CreateObject("Word.Application")
         
With WordApp
    .Application.Visible = True
    .StatusBar = "Preparing to add a new Mail-Merge document in Word format.  Please wait..."
    .Documents.Open strFileName, ReadOnly:=False, AddToRecentFiles:=False, Revert:=True
    .ActiveDocument.MailMerge.OpenDataSource Name:= _
        strMailMergeFileName, ConfirmConversions:=False, ReadOnly:= _
        False, LinkToSource:=True, Revert:=True, AddToRecentFiles:=False
    .ActiveDocument.ActiveWindow.View.ShowFieldCodes = False        
    .ActiveDocument.MailMerge.SuppressBlankLines = True         
    .ActiveDocument.MailMerge.ViewMailMergeFieldCodes = False   
    .ActiveDocument.MailMerge.Destination = 0                   ' Merge to a New Document
.......... 
..........
..........
End With




WordApp.Quit
Set WordApp = Nothing

Cheers,

[RMittelman]

Thanks for sample code Vlad. Not sure exactly what is different in your code from mine that would prevent image from populating the field.

I did find a work-around: Since in my document the particular field codes for the signatures are in a Word table, I wrote code so that if the field value in the data source is a path to an image file, I removed the contents of that table cell (basically only the field code), and replaced it with the image itself. Therefore there is no issue around merging the image. This wouldn't work if images needed to be dynamic, different for each merged document. In my case all documents would share the same image, so it's simpler to paste the image into the source merge document, replacing a merge field, before performing the merge.

Thanks again for the answers...

[moke123]

I was going to suggest the other day that you embed the image in the source document. I've been a long time user of Albert Kallal's Super Easy WordMerge and what I've done is set it up so there is both a shared library of template documents and a personal library of template documents. If someone wants to use a signature image they can do so and save it to their personal library.