Can defaults be set on the Mail Merge Contacts dialogue?

[Nunjafush]

I'm using Office 2003 Pro and am creating a Job Card by mail merging specific
records in my Outlook Contacts to my standard Job Card document (that I have
already created in Word).

This all works absolutely fine BUT every time I do it (and this is many
times each day) I have to tell it to use "Only selected contacts" and I have
to tell it which Word document to merge to (this is all in the Mail Merge
Contacts dialogue box).

Is there some way to set my own defaults in the Mail Merge Contacts dialogue
box? All I want to be able to do is set the Contacts option to "Only selected
contacts" and the Document file section to "Existing document" with the
correct file name (or at the very least to default to the same folder every
time - after you've entered the folder, it will keep going to the same folder
each time until you shut down Outlook and then you have to browse for it
again next time you open it).

 

[Mary]

Set up a distribution group with only those contacts. Look up "create a
distribution list" in Help.

 

[Roady [MVP]]

That won't help much. You're close though. A custom view would work to more
easily filter the contacts.

 

[Nunjafush]

No, no, I'm obviously not explaining myself. I don't want to set up a filter
or a distribution list - I'm totally fine with the records that are being
selected, because it is only ever one record at a time that I'm selecting.

I only have one record selected, so unless I totally misunderstand how this
Mail Merge thing works, I need to select "Only selected contacts" EVERY TIME
I RUN THE MAIL MERGE. I also need to select the document that I'm merging to
EVERY TIME I RUN THE MAIL MERGE.

What I would like is:
1. for "Only selected contacts" to be selected by default rather than "All
contacts in current view".

2. for "Existing document" to be selected by default rather than "New
document"

3. for the box next to "Existing document" to have
"c:\procedures\jobcard.doc" already filled in whenever I do the mail merge OR
at the very least, go straight to "c:\procedures" rather than "c:\my
documents" when I click on the browse button.

I'm imagining the fixes for these are probably going to end up being
registry tweaks, but I have no idea where to start - hoping somebody here
will know.

 

[Roady [MVP]]

No registry tweaks will solve this as the fields are not exposed. It's not
possible what you want unless you generate the merged document with VBA
code.

 

[Nunjafush]

So theoretically, I could get all this to work if I wrote some VBA code to do
it? So, I would just click a button and it would use the contact I had
currently highlighted in Outlook to merge into the Word document I've already
created (which uses fields I've brought in from Outlook)?

I guess I'm off to the Outlook - Programming VBA section then.

Thanks for your response Roady.

 

[Roady [MVP]]

Yes, that's possible and you're welcome!
You also might want to stop by at http://www.outlookcode.com