Excel Mail Merge

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Fie - 13 Dec 2006 11:50 GMT

Hi,

Was wondering if any of you guys knew anything about my problem. What
it is, its that I was imported Addressed from our inhouse systems into
an Excel Spreadsheet some of the addresses on the spreadsheet have been
deleted out as they are no longer required. I have then went into
Microsoft Word to create a mail merge. When I try and open the data
source it comes up with an error :

Word could not re-establish a DDE connection to Microsoft
Excel to complete the current task.

has anyone any ideas why this is doing this? If I dont delete anything
from the Excel spreadsheet the mail merge works no problems.

Fiona

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windsurferLA - 15 Dec 2006 07:21 GMT

> Hi,
>
[quoted text clipped - 12 lines]
>
> Fiona

I've had a similar strange problems in the past when I was using an
older version of MSoffice . I'm not too expert, but as I recall MS uses
a file call ODBC to facilitate data exchange. Over the years, Microsoft
has discovered various vulnerabilities related to the ODBC file, and
some of their updates change that file to eliminate those
vulnerabilities. However, the update does not necessarily change Word
and Excel so that they will still work with the new ODBC. If you're
using a newer version of Office, we need to look for another reason.

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David McRitchie - 15 Dec 2006 16:22 GMT

> > Word could not re-establish a DDE connection to Microsoft
> > Excel to complete the current task.

see
HOW TO: Use an Excel Data Source for Mail Merge in Word 2000
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;212314

Mail Merge, Printing Labels using Mail Merge with data from Excel
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/mailmerg.htm

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davegb - 19 Dec 2006 22:11 GMT

> > Hi,
> >
[quoted text clipped - 21 lines]
> and Excel so that they will still work with the new ODBC. If you're
> using a newer version of Office, we need to look for another reason.

ODBC is not a file, it is a process (MS deveoloped) for connecting data
between different kinds of databases. It stands for "Open Database
Connectivity". It isn't used for mail merge. Mail Merge uses DDE
technology (older then ODBC), which is "Dynamic Data Exchange". DDE has
always been a bit flaky. The error you're seeing is referring to this
DDE technology.

Unfortunately, I don't know what is causing the OP's problem. DDE is
touchy! Try copying the source sheet into a new workbook and see it
that helps.

Hope this helps in your world.

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