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MS Office Forum / Word / Mailmerge and Fax / July 2005Problem with repeated access to the datasource (Excel Spreadsheet)
I have several Word documents that I use as main documents for email merges. The merged data and email addresses come from two spreadsheets (not simultaniously). I need to use the merge documents several times each day, so I'd like to be able to create each one once and then re-use them from there on out. The problem is that now that I have each document created, they only work right part of the time and I haven't been able to identify the cause of what seems to be intermittant data errors. Sometimes, when I open one of the merged documents, I get an error message saying "This operation cannot be completed because of dialog or database engine failures. Please try again later". I click OK. Then, I'm presented with a message saying "Word cannot find its data source...", so I click "Find Data Source...", which works for finding the data source, but then I have to re-define the recipient criteria, which takes up even more time. I save the document, in hopes that it will retain the data, which it does for a while, but after I open and use another merge document, the first one stops working and I have to set it up again! So annoying. Any ideas on how to fix this would really be appreciated. Thanks! Mike C. here could be more than one problem here, but do you have either of the spreadsheets open twice at the same time - e.g. do you ever have two Mail Merge Main documents, connected to the same Excel sheet, open at the same time, or one Mail Merge main document and the sheet also open in Excel? If so, you may find that only opening each sheet in one way at a time may help. Also, which version of Office, and are you selecting a particular connection method or using Word's default. Peter Jamieson >I have several Word documents that I use as main documents for email >merges. [quoted text clipped - 24 lines] > Thanks! > Mike C. Peter - Thanks for the troubleshooting. Good points to check. No, none of those are the case, though. I'm in Office 2003 and am using the default settings. Also, I was wondering if this might go smoother if my data were in a single location, specifically, in an Access table. I was thinking of doing some sort of query in Access to combine the data from the spreadsheets into a single table and then to use that for my email merge. Thoughts? > here could be more than one problem here, but do you have either of the > spreadsheets open twice at the same time - e.g. do you ever have two Mail [quoted text clipped - 34 lines] > > Thanks! > > Mike C. I was thinking of doing some > sort of query in Access to combine the data from the spreadsheets into a > single table and then to use that for my email merge. Thoughts? You can certainly get data into Access in a number of ways (link to an Excel table, import data from an excel table, write a query that explicitly queries the table) and I would certainly give it a try if the real source of the problem does not become apparent. Peter Jamieson > Peter - Thanks for the troubleshooting. Good points to check. No, none > of [quoted text clipped - 55 lines] >> > Thanks! >> > Mike C. Thanks for the reply. Do you know of some good documentation to get me started on this? > I was thinking of doing some > > sort of query in Access to combine the data from the spreadsheets into a [quoted text clipped - 66 lines] > >> > Thanks! > >> > Mike C. > Do you know of some good documentation to get me > started on this? No, but... > (link to an Excel >> table, import data from an excel table To try either of these, open Access, create a new database, and use File|Get External Data. There are two options - follow the prompts after that. You can either import the data, or link to it. If you import the data, you will need to do that manually before each merge, and there might be better and simpler ways than that to manage the data (for example, maintaining it in Access in the first place may be one possibility). If you link to the table, you may need to relink later if, for example, the spreadsheet structure changes, but try it and see. When you are asked for the data source, set the "Files of type" to show "Microsoft Excel (*.xls)", then select your workbook. (You might think you could also get the data via ODBC, but do not bother to try ODBC Databases because it does not work for data sources such as Excel). >>write a query that explicitly >> queries the table) Let's not go there yet - it uses the same underlying method as the above and will probably suffer the same problems. Peter Jamieson > Thanks for the reply. Do you know of some good documentation to get me > started on this? [quoted text clipped - 87 lines] >> >> > Thanks! >> >> > Mike C. Thanks for the reply. Do you know of some good documentation to get me started on this? > I was thinking of doing some > > sort of query in Access to combine the data from the spreadsheets into a [quoted text clipped - 66 lines] > >> > Thanks! > >> > Mike C. |
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