Troubleshooting

If your concern isn't listed below, please contact support.

OnMerge Images buttons/controls don't show up after installation

  1. This problem is usually resolved by setting Word's security options.
  2. Close all copies of both Word and Outlook; once they're all closed, you can restart them.
  3. If all else fails, restarting Windows will almost always solve the problem.

OnMerge Images controls don't appear on startup, but did in the past

Word 2007: Click the Microsoft Office (Circle) button, then click Word Options (at bottom). On the Tools menu, click Trust Center, then click Add-ins. Proceed on toAll Word versions 2007 & later, below.

Word 2010: Click File in the menu, then click Options in the left column. In the dialog box, click Add-ins in the left column. Proceed on to All Word versions 2007 & later, below.

All Word versions 2007 & later: Locate OnMerge Images in either Active Application Add-ins or Inactive Application Add-ins section.

If OnMerge Images is in the Active Application Add-ins section, contact support.

If OnMerge Images is in the Inactive Application Add-ins section:

  • In the Manage box, click Disabled Items, click Go.
  • Click OnMerge Images and click Enable.
  • Click Close.
  • Close all open Word and Outlook sessions and re-open them.

Word 2007 & later: Security Alert pops up for Add-in: OnMerge Images

Select Enable all code published by this publisher then click OK.

Some or all images don't show up

Double-check that the folder name in the OnMerge dialog exactly matches the folder name where your files are stored.

Looking at the Image File Name preview at the top, left of the OnMerge dialog, make sure that the filename exactly matches the name of the image file in question. Some usual suspects: doubled-up characters, missing or extra spaces, zero vs. Oh, ell vs. one, dash vs. underscore, underscore vs. blank, extra periods (dots).

Check if there's some unexpected variation in the actual file names, for example some files are .JPG and others .GIF. See here if that's the case.

Image size is incorrect

See Sizing Your Image.

By default, OnMerge will fit each merged image into imaginary boxes that you define on the master template. As explained in the paragraph below, you can do that by dragging the corners of the OnMerge Image in the master template, or by setting the Image Box Width and Height on the Options tab in the OnMerge dialog.

A few words about resizing when Preserve Image's Proportions is checked: when you size the image's box, you must drag the image's box to the maximum in BOTH dimensions that you want the picture to fit into. For example, if you wanted to make a box that would show both 5x4 and 4x5 pictures in their true size, you'd drag the box to 5x5. The image may appear distorted after dragging the box, but it'll snap back to an undistorted image once you click outside the image. OnMerge will remember the size of the box you originally dragged, and will use that memorized box to determine what dimensions subsequent images must fit completely inside of. The memorized box size is displayed next to the Preserve Image's Proportions option.

The Preserve Image's Proportions option is the default option, so it will be in effect unless you've changed it. To check it, click the Advanced tab at the top of the OnMerge dialog box. You will also notice that the latest exact size of the memorized box is listed below that option.

Images disappear after Merge to New Document or Edit Individual Documents
    or
Need to use final document on computers that don't have OnMerge

OnMerge normally works by keeping a link to the picture in the Word file, and not the picture itself. That means that the same pictures must be available when you re-open the merged file. If you send the merged document to somebody else, your correspondent can't see the pictures since they're not on their computer.

There are a few alternate ways around this:

  1. Save the merged file to PDF and send the PDF.
  2. Place your pictures in the same folder as the master document (or in a subfolder of it), and save the merged document in the same folder. That way, any relative paths in OnMerge filename links will be the same. You can send the document + pictures to your correspondent in a ZIP file.
  3. Make OnMerge copy the image files into the new, merged document using the Copy these images... setting. See Document Options for more details, and be sure to note the warning about how this option increases document file size.

Positioning or formatting an image disables OnMerge for that image

You cannot position OnMerge images in a fixed place, nor use Words various text-wrapping styles on an OnMerge Image. OnMerge Images can only be placed "in-line with text." To work around this, put the OnMerge Image inside a 1x1 Word table, then position or format the table the way you need to. You can create Tables:

Use Insert, then Table then Insert Table; it's often useful to then select the table and click Layout, Properties, Options, then check the Automatically resize to fit contents box.

Merging stops after exactly 1 or 2 data records

Certain types of data source files can cause Word to prematurely end a merge. It's due to a bug in Word and only applies to only certain data file types, most notably tab- and comma-separated (TSV, CSV, txt) files. Most file types are not affected, such as Excel, Outlook, Access, SQL.

Option 1: Use OnMerge's CSV Loader to load the file, insead of Word's Select Recpiients.

Option 2: Open the data file in Excel and save it as an .xlsx or .xls file. If the data has any field(s) with more than 255 characters, you must pad out that column's header (title) with blanks to 256 or more characters before you save it. Otherwise, Word will cut off the ends of data fields after 255 characters.

Spreadsheet data is cut off after 255 characters

Word guesses the maximum width of each data field based on the first 8 rows of data. It assumes a 255-character limit for a column if it has less than 255 characters in all of the first 8 rows. Each column's maximum width is independent of other columns.

If that's a problem, pad out the spreadsheet column's name (top row of the spreadsheet) to 256 or more characters.

How can I get rid of the box with red X that shows up when the field doesn't match the database?

See this help page.

How can I produce a bunch of individual PDFs from one merge, and optionally e-mail those PDFs to different people?

  1. Do the merge to one big, new document.
  2. Convert the new document to a PDF
  3. Use PDFsam (free), AutoSplit or AutoDocMail to split and/or email the individual PDFs.

Acrobat PDFMaker is failing to print

Don't use PDFMaker. Instead, merge to "print" and select Acrobat Distiller as the printer.

WebImages shows Error 0x80072EFD or 0x70072F7D

Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8.0: Usually (but not always), those errors are because the web server you're retrieving a file from requires your computer to use the TLS 1.2 secure internet protocol. This should not be a problem for Windows 8.1 and later since they use this protocol by default, but earlier Windows do not. That's because TLS 1.1 and 1.2 were not invented at the time. Windows Updates have since added those protocols to Windows 7 and 8.0, but they're not enabled by default.

You can easily check this: use your regular web browser to access the exact same URL of the image you're trying to retrieve. If it works in the browser but not in OnMerge, this is very likely the problem.

If you're using Windows XP or Windows Vista, you're out of luck. Sorry! Those operating systems do not support TLS 1.2 at all except in certain web browsers.

You can configure Windows 7 and Windows 8.0 to the use TLS 1.2, but that requires administrator access. To do so, you must use the Registry Editor to create the following 2 values:

  • In HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\WinHttp, create a DWORD value with a name of DefaultSecureProtocols and a hex value of AA0
  • In HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\WinHttp, create a DWORD value with a name of DefaultSecureProtocols and a hex value of AA0

Restart Word after editing the registry. It is not necessary to restart Windows.

Notice: The above steps tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it.

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