This is a quick post based on a question in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Community forum.
Problem Statement: Can I dynamically add a hyperlink in a mail merge? The URLs are stored in a field on the CRM record. Need that URL to be added as hyperlink on an image.
Solution:
It is possible to add dynamic links coming in as merge fields to an image. To keep it simple, am adding the website field on account as a hyperlink in the merge document. You can use this feature to insert dynamic content for a campaign or something more useful.
Here’s how to do it:
- Select a few accounts and click ‘Mail Merge’
- You can use a template if you have. I’m going to create a Blank document. Choose the data fields required. Make sure you add the URL field. In my case, the website field. Click OK followed by ‘Download ‘ button on the Mail Merge dialog.
- You should have the word document similar to below. As instructed, enable the macros on the document
- Click ‘CRM’ in the Add-ins tab.
- You will see the records we had selected in Step 1. Click OK.
- Say that you want to distribute the high net worth accounts’ details to your key sales team. Add any text you want in the document and insert a picture (image). Right click the image to add a hyperlink.
- In Insert Hyperlink dialog, enter some temporary text say ‘TempURL’ for the Address. Click OK.
- Now press “ALT+F9” to see the code in the mail merge document.
- Delete the temporary text ‘TempURL’ in the hyperlink and use the ‘Insert Merge Field’ option to add the actual URL field.
- Press ‘ALT+F9’ to close the code. Now, select ‘Edit Individual documents’ in ‘Finish & Merge’.
- As seen in the tooltip, the URL is still showing the temporary text we had entered. Unfortunately, Word isn’t refreshing the image link automatically. Press “Ctrl+A” to select all the contents of the document and then Press F9 to refresh.
- Here is the result with all the dynamic address applied to the images!
Using ATL-F9 does not allow me to see the code for the image and hyperlink. Any thoughts?
Ben, It could be that the 'ALT+F9' shortcut is assigned to something else in your system.
Check some workarounds here http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2010-word/shiftf9-and-alt-f9-do-not-reveal-includepicture/84175651-b7f7-40e0-bb95-c9b1584f31a0
Thank you the workaround of saving this as a Word 97-2003 document worked. Apparently the functionality has been removed in Word 2013.