MappedDataField Object

Represents a single mapped data field. The MappedDataField object is a member of the MappedDataFields collection. The MappedDataFields collection includes all the mapped data fields available in Microsoft Word.

A mapped data field is a field contained within Microsoft Word that represents commonly used name or address information, such as "First Name." If a data source contains a "First Name" field or a variation (such as "First_Name," "FirstName," "First," or "FName"), the field in the data source will automatically map to the corresponding mapped data field in Word. If a document or template is to be merged with more than one data source, mapped data fields make it unnecessary to reenter the fields into the document to agree with the field names in the database.

Using the MappedDataField object

Use the MappedDataFields property to return a MappedDataField object. This example returns the data source field name for the wdFirstName mapped data field. This example assumes the current document is a mail merge document. A blank string value returned for the DataFieldName property indicates that the mapped data field is not mapped to a field in the data source.

Sub MappedFieldName()

    With ThisDocument.MailMerge.DataSource
        If .MappedDataFields.Item(wdFirstName).DataFieldName <> "" Then
            MsgBox "The mapped data field 'FirstName' is mapped to " _
            & .MappedDataFields(Index:=wdFirstName) _
            .DataFieldName & "."
        Else
            MsgBox "The mapped data field 'FirstName' is not " & _
                "mapped to any of the data fields in your " & _
                "data source."
        End If

    End With

End Sub