I'm using the DATABASE field in Word, following the documentation here
I'm using the \l switch to assign a format, but now I'm wondering where I can find these formats that link to the numbers of the \l switch? They seem quite old, I'm guessing they originate from older versions of Word (I'm using Word 2013). Is there an overview of these templates and can I somehow use the new table templates from Word with the database field?
Thanks in advance!
They are quite old. AFAICR they relate to the standard table formats used elsewhere in the product, but I think there is probably a more reliable source - the details of the \l parameter values are provided in Microsoft's implementation notes for the .docx standard. AFAIK, there are two versions,
[MS-OE376].pdf, which relates to the earlier ECMA standard and [MS-OI29500].pdf, which relates to the ISO standard.
e.g. in the latter, there is a list of \l values at Look for, e.g. Part 1 Section 17.16.5.12, DATABASE or perhaps just DATABASE
AFAIK there is no way to add your own templates. The best you can do is apply formatting and use a *Mergeformat switch in the field to try to retain it the next time the field updates. But I do not think that is reliable - for example, you will probably find that your formatting only works for the first page of the table, and/or for the number of table rows that that were in the table the last time it was updated (and that has implications if you want to use a DATABASE field in a mail merge).