I am havinga huge problem with my mail merge that could
prevent me from fully implementing my new database.
Here's the (thorough) setup: I have two computers
networked through an access point/router, the "Dell" and
the "eMachine". The Dell is running Win XP Pro and the
eMachine XP Home. They are all using Office XP. I have
all of my Word documents (a couple hundred) and my Access
backend (data) stored on the Dell. Each of the two
computers has a frontend of the database. I have all of
my documents merged to a query that's in the frontend of
the database on the Dell.
Here's the problem. All of the documents seem to work
fine on the Dell. They open, they merge, they do what
they're supposed to. The problem is on the eMachine.
None of them work! When I open them, they all say "Data
source cannot be found" I guess because the path to the
data is on the other computer. I would just have a copy
of the documents on each computer, except that the
documents are often modified, and as a result we would
have different documents on the two computers. What is
the best way to fix this problem? Can I? Please please
someone help me on this one.
Oh, and to add to the twist, I brought my laptop into the
office today, and when I try to open the documents in the
Dell from my laptop, they work fine. They open just as
they do on the Dell, and the datasource path is still the
Dell. I don't get it!
Cindy M -WordMVP- - 21 Aug 2004 12:11 GMT
Hi Jordan,
The problem is known, although I can't recall anyone having
ever tracked down a "definitive" answer to it. You might
check on the "eMachine" whether in Tools/Options/Save the
option to create a local copy of a network file is
activated. This could be interfering.
Otherwise, the one "sure" way to avoid the problem is to NOT
save the data source with the document. And then use a macro
to dynamically link in the data source when the document is
opened.
> I am havinga huge problem with my mail merge that could
> prevent me from fully implementing my new database.
[quoted text clipped - 25 lines]
> they do on the Dell, and the datasource path is still the
> Dell. I don't get it!
Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun
8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org
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