Insert Image Based on Mail Merge Field in Word

Corinne Sheppard 2

I need to find a way to insert a couple of different logos based on membership category (ex. if constituent/member has one of these membership categories, place this logo here, else leave blank. Was hoping to use a conditional merge feature in Mail but wasn't sure how to do this. Any advice would be appreciated!


Corinne Sheppard

csheppard@toledomuseum.org

Tom Klimchak

There's a way to do this that's a little outside the box... I struggled with this same concept for years... Ended up making silly macros and VBA scripts and doing all sorts of nutty things.  There's a much easier way!  Here's how:


Use your if..then Conditional Merge statement to produce some unique text for each logo you want to output.  Maybe something like [ABC] for one category and [DEF] for another category.  So when you produce your merge you'll end up with something like this:

Robert Hernandez [ABC] [DEF]


So far, so good... Save your document just to be safe.  Now the fun.  You're going to replace the text with the image for each category.

1. Find the image you want and copy it to your computer's clipboard.  I usually use right-click and copy the image that way, but you want to be sure you copy the image itself not a link or file name.  You can even test it out in a blank document.  Right-click and paste to make sure the image appears.  Okay, image is in your clipbard.
   
    
2. Go back to your document with the [ABC] stuff.  Hit the Find & Replace button.
   
    
3. In the Find what field, enter [ABC].  In the Replace with field type in ^c   That's a shift-6 to make the caret symbol, then lowercase 'c'.  It tells Word to replace the text with whatever is in your computer's clipboard.  It should look like this:
   
   
    
4. Cross your fingers and click on Replace All.
   
    
5. Word might take a few seconds, but as long as your image isn't too big and your document isn't too long things should work pretty quickly.  All your instances of [ABC] should now be replaced with your image.
   
    
6. Optional: tell your coworkers it took you HOURS to set up all those images, but you did it for the good of the company.

I *think* this has been a standard feature in Word for a while.  I have Word 2013 here and it works well.  That being said, I've seen it crash documents from time to time (so save often!)... For us it usually works fine the second time.


Hope that helps!