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MS Office Forum / Word / Mailmerge and Fax / November 2004MailMerge Access query is empty
I have a Word "Main Document" that has functioned perfectly for several years taking its "data source" from an Access query. The query is defined within the mde file of a split database and obtains the data from the "back-end" mdb file. Both the mde and mdb files were created in Access 2000 and the Word 2000 MailMerge has performed perfectly. When attempting to run the MailMerge in Word 2003 the Access query comes up empty. I tried moving the query definition to the mdb file where the data resides and re-linking the main document there, but get the same results. How do I resolve this one? Thanks, Bill Would someone more familiar with Word 2003 than I am please have a look at article 301595 and tell me how to remain compatible between Access 2000 and Word 2003? If I read the article correctly, I would have to have two different queries defined in the 2000 mde file, corresponding to the requirements of Word 2000 and Word 2003. Where the only difference between the two is the use of "%" for 2003 wildcards and "*" for the 2000 wildcards. Thanks, Bill >I have a Word "Main Document" that has functioned perfectly > for several years taking its "data source" from an Access query. [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > Thanks, > Bill Hi Bill, Your best bet IMO would be to force mail merge to use ODBC. Activate "Confirm conversions on open" in Tools/Options/General. After selecting the mdb or mde file, choose ODBC. In order to see a list of queries appended to the list of tables, click on "Options" and activate "Views". > Would someone more familiar with Word 2003 than I am please > have a look at article 301595 and tell me how to remain compatible [quoted text clipped - 25 lines] > > Thanks, > > Bill Cindy Meister INTER-Solutions, Switzerland http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004) 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 :-) Hi Cindy, I was hoping you'd spot my post. Other than "Confirm conversions on open", the options you described don't seem to fit Word 2000. It would seem then, that they have to be exercised on the W2003 system. If that is the case, I'll have to send your instructions to the end user of that system. Or, did I not adequately understand your intent. Thanks, Bill > Hi Bill, > [quoted text clipped - 41 lines] > This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow > question or reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail :-) Hi Bill, > Other than "Confirm conversions on open", the options you described > don't seem to fit Word 2000. It would seem then, that they have to be > exercised on the W2003 system. If that is the case, I'll have to send > your instructions to the end user of that system. Or, did I not adequately > understand your intent. In order to use ODBC on a 2000 system, activate the "Select method" checkbox (I think that's how it's called; only checkbox, anyway) in Open Datasource. From there on, things should be the same. Cindy Meister INTER-Solutions, Switzerland http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004) 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 :-) Hi Cindy, Cindy, I don't think we're "tracking" here. In W2k, it is indeed "select method" that will get one to where one can select either tables or queries from within a mdb or mde file. And, I've been doing that with successful merges every since YOU taught that to me a couple of years ago... hahaha! Now, in W2003, the Wizard will allow one to navigate to where one can also select from a list of queries within a given mdb or mde file. The Wizard presents the option to browse and select similar but not the same as W2k. Anyway, having followed that path and successfully selected a query, the merge fails due to there not being any records selected according to the "criteria" specified in the query. It is out of that experience that I posted my first question and subsequently found the discussion on "*" versus "%" that led to my appended post. I'm beginning to get the idea that you're trying to tell me to retain the use of the "*" as the wildcard and turn on the "Confirm conversions on open" option in W2003 so that the "*" will be treated as a wildcard. I would simply test that if I had W2003 on my machine, but unfortunately that is not the case. Am I getting close to the proper understanding? Regards, Bill > Hi Bill, > [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or > reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail :-) Hi Bill, > I'm beginning to get the idea that you're trying to tell me to retain > the use of the "*" as the wildcard and turn on the "Confirm [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > Am I getting close to the proper understanding? Yes, this is what I was trying to say (but not in so many words; sorry, I've been playing catch-up on some 8000 unread messages over the last week). If you use an ODBC connection, it won't matter which version of Office is running. This is because the ODBC drivers haven't changed how they work and still understand ANSI-89. OLE DB, the new connection method, is set up to use ANSI-92 (the different wild cards), so you'll never get compatibility across versions. Also, OLE DB is "iffy" for both Access and Excel; you'll get much more reliable results and stable behavior using ODBC. Cindy Meister INTER-Solutions, Switzerland http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004) 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 :-) Hi Cindy, Sounds like you're swamped and I appreciate your taking the time to answer my questions. Last one: Does enabling "Confirm conversions on open" in W2003 trigger the use of an ODBC connection? Thanks, Bill > Hi Bill, > [quoted text clipped - 24 lines] > This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question > or reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail :-) Hi Bill, > Does enabling "Confirm > conversions on open" in W2003 trigger the use of an ODBC > connection? No, it does what "Select method" does in earlier versions: allows you to choose which connection method you prefer from a list :-) Cindy Meister INTER-Solutions, Switzerland http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004) 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 :-) Oops! my earlier post went via "reply" vs. "reply group". I've repeated it here followed by an update from my conference with my 2003 end user moments ago. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Hi Cindy, Perfect! I thought my "trigger" idea was a bit of a stretch. I notice that when I get the "confirm" prompt in W2000 that "DDE" is the only option, which doesn't seem right based on everything you've told me. Can I infer from that that the DDE drivers also understand ANSI-89 and hence the use of "*"? Bill ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Cindy, I just walked my 2003 user through the data source selection wherein I had him select "DDE for mdb's and mde's" versus "ODBC for mdb's alone", as the queries are defined within the front-end mde that use "*" as wild cards, and, choosing ODBC only gives selection options amongst tables in the back-end. So, unless you have some warnings about the use of DDE, we're done with this caper. I couldn't have solved this one without your help, so I thank you most appreciatively. Regards, Bill Stanton California USA > Hi Bill, > [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > follow question or reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail > :-) Hi Bill 1. If you aren't seeing ODBC, perhaps the drivers aren't installed. 2. I do believe I mentioned one has to click "Options" and activate "Views" to see queries when choosing ODBC? 3. DDE will work fine, but you have to keep in mind that this is very old technology, and MS no longer worries all too much about keeping it working. The further we progress, the more reliable ODBC is, compared to DDE. As long as your client is up and running, and happy, I wouldn't try to fix what isn't broken :-) But I urge you to save this exchange somewhere, so that you can go back and tell him how to use ODBC when he calls and says Word is telling him it can't set up a DDE connection :-) Cindy Meister INTER-Solutions, Switzerland http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004) 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 :-) Hi Cindy, We did see ODBC but only for mdb's, not mde's. Do we need to click "Options" -> "View" to see ODBC for mde's? I can probably resolve the issue by moving the query to the back-end mdb file, as that particular query is fairly static. Bill > Hi Bill > [quoted text clipped - 23 lines] > follow question or reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail > :-) Hi Bill, > We did see ODBC but only for mdb's, not mde's. > Ah. It might be that you need to create a DSN specifically for an *mde. I've never done anything with the run-time file format, really, so... > I can probably resolve the issue by moving the > query to the back-end mdb file, as that particular > query is fairly static. Or that. Cindy Meister INTER-Solutions, Switzerland http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004) 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 :-) Hi Cindy, How do I create a DSN for *mde? Bill > Hi Bill, > [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > follow question or reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail > :-) Hi Bill, > How do I create a DSN for *mde? As I mentioned, I never really use them, so I can't give you exact steps. But... Control Panel, Administrative Tools, ODBC Data source Administrator. Choose the type of DSN (User or System, usually). Click Add. Choose the Access ODBC driver, click Finish. Now click Configuration and choose the database file. If this doesn't work, then I recommend asking in an Access newsgroup how to get an ODBC connection set up to a *.mde file. Cindy Meister INTER-Solutions, Switzerland http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004) 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 :-) Thanks Cindy. You've been a great help and I really appreciate your time and thought. I'll pursue the DSN issue and get us to where we're using ODBC with a mde or I'll move the queries to the backend mdb. Thanks again, Bill Stanton > Hi Bill, > [quoted text clipped - 25 lines] > follow question or reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail > :-) |
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