Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Word 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Word, click here: Checkboxes in a Merged Document.

Checkboxes in a Merged Document

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated May 9, 2020)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


Saul has to do a merge where the merge document contains a series of checkboxes. He would like the checkboxes to have checkmarks in them based on a Y or N in the data source being merged.

This is relatively easy to do, if you know how to create the merge field that will do the check boxes. For example, let's say that the field in the data source that will contain the Y or N designation is called "checkbox". You could create a merge field similar to the following:

{ IF { MERGEFIELD checkbox }= "Y" "A" "B" }

To make the field do what you want, you need to replace the A and B characters with, respectively, a checked checkbox and an unchecked checkbox. There are a variety of these that you can use, all accessible by the Insert Symbol dialog box. Just insert the characters in place of A and B in the above, and you should get the desired characters when you perform the actual merge.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (511) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Word (Word 2007 and later) here: Checkboxes in a Merged Document.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

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