You can personalize your mail merge documents by placing variables within the text of the document. Then, when you merge the document for a patient, parent, dentist, or other professional, the variables are replaced with information specific to that person.
Position your cursor where you want to place the information in your document.
Open variable menu - Open the Add-In menu (if needed). Select the VP menu to display a list of variable categories, most of which have subcategories.
Choose variable - Select the category, and subcategory if needed, for the type of information you want to insert. Then select the variable you want to use. Most variable names are self-explanatory. Certain variables have additional requirements, such as treatment findings variables and patient images. See the links at the bottom of this article for additional information about these variables.
Review & edit the variable code - Once you have properly inserted a variable, it appears in the text of your document. (If you do not see the codes, press ALT+F9.) You can manually copy, paste, and edit the code to change it into another variable, but be careful - spelling counts! This feature is particularly useful for adding a series of related variables, such as treatment findings, to a letter.
Save & Exit - Click the X in the upper right corner of the Word document window. As you exit, you have the opportunity to save the document.
Notice!
Toggle Merge Code Display - When creating and editing documents with mail merge codes (such as variables and conditional statements), it is helpful and sometimes necessary to be able to see the codes. During regular daily use, however, you may wish to have them off. While different versions of Word have different ways of accessing this setting, an easy way to toggle the merge code display, regardless of your version of Word, is to press ALT+F9 on your keyboard.
Treatment Findings Variables - You can insert both the short and long descriptions of your patients' treatment findings into your mail merge documents, and print them in either list or paragraph form.See "Mail Merge Tool: Findings Variables" for details.
Online form variables - Run the Online Forms Questions report to obtain a copy of the questions that are in your online forms, as well as their corresponding mail-merge variables, making this report handy for inserting online form data into mail merge documents. See "Online Forms Questions & Variables Report" for details.
Electronic signatures - If you have installed one or more e-Pad devices at your workstations, you may want to include an electronic
signature in your mail merge documents. This
is especially useful for Truth-In-Lending and Contract documents, as the
electronic signature will be archived in the correspondence history along with the merged document. See "Mail Merge Tool: Electronic Signature" for details.
- Open the Add-In menu (if needed). Select the 
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