Catalogue mail merge: where does Word get the next/previous record's field values from? (MS's list sorted by category example)

[Christian]

Hi everyone,

I followed the example on http://support.microsoft.com/kb/211303/EN-US
to set up a "list sorted by category" using mail merge in Word 2000
(newer versions: [1]) with an Excel worksheet as source [2]. I got it
to work all right. (For convenience, I'll repost the code below.)

However, I'm wondering why Word sets bookmark "Place2" equal to the
preceding record's City field.
In other words: how does word now it has to store the next/previous
record's/set's City in Place2? (I can't see any "command" that would
tell Word to do that. There is nothing like a {NEXT}/{PREVIOUS}
instruction...

Any help is much appreciated.
If there is a website out there detailing how to code mail merge
catalogues, I'd love to have the URL.

Kind regards,
Chris

1) http://support.microsoft.com/kb/294686/en-us
2) http://support.microsoft.com/kb/212314/en-us

Code ____________
{ IF { MERGESEQ } = "1" "{ MERGEFIELD City }" "" }<ENTER>
{ SET Place1 { MERGEFIELD City }}<ENTER>
{ If { Place2 } <> { Place1 }"<ENTER>
{ MERGEFIELD City }<ENTER>
<ENTER>
{ MERGEFIELD Employee }{ MERGEFIELD Sales }" "{ MERGEFIELD Employee }
{ MERGEFIELD Sales }" }{ SET Place2 { MERGEFIELD City }}<ENTER>