Enable or disable form merging

If you enable form merging for a form template, your users can consolidate data from many different forms that are based on that form template into one new form. This is useful when your users want to compare or summarize data from several forms. For example, a manager whose team fills out a weekly status report form can merge the data from several forms into a single summary form for the director.

By default, when multiple forms are merged into a single form, the only data that is merged is data that is contained in a repeating table or repeating section, or data that is associated with a list control or a rich text box control. However, you can specify that data in other types of controls should also be merged. It is important to note that, even if data is contained in controls that do not support merging or that do not have a merge action specified, the data in the original forms is not deleted when you merge those forms. Your users can still see their original data by opening each form individually.

Tip: If you enable form merging for a form template, your users can also merge forms that are stored in an InfoPath Forms folder in Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 or in document libraries on a Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services site.

To enable or disable form merging for a form template, do the following:

1. On the Tools menu, click Form Options.

2. Under Category, click Advanced.

3. Do one of the following:

   • To disable merging, clear the Enable form merging check box.

   • To enable merging, select the Enable form merging check box.

     Enable users to merge forms by using custom code that you provide

     To enable users to merge forms by using custom code, after you select the Enable form merging check box, do the following:

     1. Select the Merge using custom code check box.

     2. Click Edit, and then type or paste the code in the Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for Applications (VSTA) window that appears.

        Notes: 

        1. To add or edit managed code, you must have Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for Applications (VSTA) installed on your computer. Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 and Microsoft Core XML Services 6.0 must be installed before you install VSTA. To install VSTA, in Control Panel, open Add or Remove Programs, locate 2007 Microsoft Office system, and then click Change.

        2. Merging forms by using custom code is not supported for browser-compatible form templates.