Can I repeat data from one record on all records in a mail merge?

I'm sure there's a fancier way to do this, but what I'd do is just intersperse columns with the criteria headers in them. Column A would have the word "name" in A1 and then the students names in A2-An. Column B would have the word "spelling" in B1-Bn. Column C would have "Spelling Score" in C1 and then the students scores in C2-Cn. And so forth. Then, just plug in those column values to your merge documents where you want the criteria names to appear.

I don't know of any way to insert merge header names into the merge document, and I tried a few ideas on my setup (exactly like yours) and came up blank each time. decathecting's method would probably work best for exactly what you are asking. I have a question, though. You say "But I want to be able to do multiple merges each day without having to create new merge documents." What is the reason behind having to create new merge documents each time? Do you have to make a completely new structure for each document every time? Could you set up the mail merge exactly like you want it - with the criteria name typed into the document, like you said - then save the un-merged document for reuse later? Each time you open that document, it will pull and update the data from the spreadsheet you linked it to when you first created it. You can also use the "change merge source" dialogue on the mail merge toolbar to switch to data stored on a different spreadsheet (or a different tab) if the field names are the same on all of them. Or could you save a couple of un-merged documents for the various types of mail merges you do, then reuse the appropriate one each time?

@decathecting - that is a pretty good workaround, although it requires twice as many columns and, believe it or not, I max out the available columns over the course of the marking period (I use Docs to Go on my Droid to do assessments during the day and the limit is much lower than on Excel). @gemmy - the problem is that for each assessment I do I need different criteria, so I either need to change the word document each time or have the word document be able to pick up heading data from Excel @Xedrik - it looks like your idea is the best I can get. I tried it out and it works well. I had hoped to make it more dynamic - i.e. I wanted to be able to open the word document and keep the data source the same, but update it to read from, say columns G, H, I, and J instead of B, C, D, and E. and automatically pull up the heading data. What I've done, building on your idea, is create a second Excel spreadsheet that is linked to my master spreadsheet. I can very quickly change the links to read from different columns as needed so it will reflect whatever headings and data I want. I then linked my Word document to that spreadsheet and, using your trick, it will put the headings right where I need them. Thanks. Of course, if anyone else reading has a simpler solution, I'm still open.