Word cannot open .dbf source data for mail merge

Thread view:

Enable EMail Alerts

Start New Thread

Thread rating:

hjcoombs - 11 Sep 2006 11:28 GMT

I am trying to do a mail merge but Word says it cannot open my .dbf data
source file despite having used this same file previously. Also in existing
mail merge documents linked to the same .dbf file it will not update/refresh
mail merge with new data added to database, stuck with data as it was when
original document was created (one year ago) so now completely useless.

Reply to this Message

Peter Jamieson - 11 Sep 2006 18:44 GMT

Are you getting automatic updates from Microsoft? I wonder if this is the
consequence of one of those.

Which version of Word? What is creating the .dbfs (is it FoxPro, or
something else?)

Do you have Access, and if so, can you successfully create linked tables to
the .dbf files? If so, you shoulf be able to use the linked table as a data
source in Word and that may be the best way to go in future.

Peter Jamieson

>I am trying to do a mail merge but Word says it cannot open my .dbf data
> source file despite having used this same file previously. Also in
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> mail merge with new data added to database, stuck with data as it was when
> original document was created (one year ago) so now completely useless.

Reply to this Message

Cindy M. - 11 Sep 2006 19:31 GMT

Hi =?Utf-8?B?aGpjb29tYnM=?=,

> I am trying to do a mail merge but Word says it cannot open my .dbf data
> source file despite having used this same file previously. Also in existing
> mail merge documents linked to the same .dbf file it will not update/refresh
> mail merge with new data added to database, stuck with data as it was when
> original document was created (one year ago) so now completely useless.

Version of Word? Did you upgrade Word since you last used the mail merge? Or
did you install something during this time that has anything to do with "data"?

What database software is generating the dbf files?

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 17 2005)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or reply
in the newsgroup and not by e-mail :-)

Reply to this Message

hjcoombs - 12 Sep 2006 09:19 GMT

The .dbf file was created by FoxPro and I was using Word 2003 - I managed to
get someone else to help me and they said my ODBC(?) wasn't set up properly,
I left them to it and it works now. Thanks Peter and Cindy for taking the
time to reply.

> Hi =?Utf-8?B?aGpjb29tYnM=?=,
>
[quoted text clipped - 16 lines]
> This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or reply
> in the newsgroup and not by e-mail :-)

Reply to this Message