Excel XP file in Word XP mail merge

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Yves Leclerc - 13 Oct 2004 21:40 GMT

I have a client where the Word XP mail merge no longer seems to able to
access an Excel XP file for use as the data source in the mail merge. I
need to re-format the file by opening the file with "Format for mail merge"
option in Word first and saving it. Then, doing the mail merge with this
re-formatted file works.

How can I get the file to open directly in mail merge?

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Y.

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Peter Jamieson - 15 Oct 2004 11:45 GMT

What goes wrong? Are you specifying any particular connection method? Is the
file open in Excel at the time when you merge? Do you get the same problem
with all Excel data sources, or just this one? If it's just this one, the
Excel file may have been corrupted and it may be worth trying to reconstruct
it from scratch

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Peter Jamieson

> I have a client where the Word XP mail merge no longer seems to able to
> access an Excel XP file for use as the data source in the mail merge. I
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
>
> How can I get the file to open directly in mail merge?

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Yves Leclerc - 15 Oct 2004 14:03 GMT

The file is closed in Excel and Excel is closed.
Whenever mail merge open the data source, it is asking for: Format, Table,
View...
This seesm to be asking how to open the file as an Access data base, which
it is not.

Y.

> What goes wrong? Are you specifying any particular connection method? Is
> the
[quoted text clipped - 12 lines]
>>
>> How can I get the file to open directly in mail merge?

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Peter Jamieson - 16 Oct 2004 10:03 GMT

Do you see this problem with all Excel data sources, or just this one?

Although I do not think that this is directly relevant to your question,
when Word opens a data source using OLEDB (the default in Word 2002/2003) it
does perceive the data source to be structured as a set of Tables and Views
rather than (e.g.) Sheets and Named ranges. So the user interface for
connecting to an Excel data source and an Access data source may be very
similar.

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Peter Jamieson

> The file is closed in Excel and Excel is closed.
> Whenever mail merge open the data source, it is asking for: Format, Table,
[quoted text clipped - 20 lines]
> >>
> >> How can I get the file to open directly in mail merge?

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