Background Mail Merge problems using Access and Word

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GeorgeD - 28 Oct 2003 17:01 GMT

I am using Access97 to create barcoded labels. These are NOT Post codes. The first attempt was to create a mail merge text file from Access which contained the extended ASCII characters that translate to the appropriate barcodes in Word when the barcode font is applied. My consternation was that Word seems unable to accept this document as a datasource without user interaction to confirm that the data source is a normal windows default text file and not Japanese or Arabic. This user dialog box prevents transparent background processing of the mailmerge.
My second attempt was to export the data as an Excel document. Now, the ,ail merge operates transparently if I use the OLEDB limkage in Word xp, but the data appears to be filtered. ASCII 167 is filtered during the mail merge ruining barcode. Using the Excel via converter option to connect to the spreadsheet correctly imports the data (including ASCII 167) but now pops up another user dialog asking whether to use the entire workbook.
Direct linkage to the Access db is not really an option either because of the open nature of the password stored in the link.
Has anyone else come across these problems and found a solution?
Thanks,
George

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Peter Jamieson - 28 Oct 2003 17:47 GMT

> Has anyone else come across these problems

Yes, international character handling is still a problem area.

> and found a solution?

Well, there are a couple of things you could try:
a. try the text or (more likely) the Excel approach but using the ODBC
connection method. However, I suspect that may also suffer a translation
problem.
b. export the text as at present, but use Word VBA to open the text file
using a specific character encoding, then save the file as a .doc file, and
use that as the data source for the merge. You should be able to do that in
Word xp at least. Unfortunately there is no way to specify the encoding -
even in VBA - when opening a text file for use as a data source.

--
Peter Jamieson
MS Word MVP

> I am using Access97 to create barcoded labels. These are NOT Post codes. The first attempt was to create a mail merge text file from Access which

contained the extended ASCII characters that translate to the appropriate
barcodes in Word when the barcode font is applied. My consternation was that
Word seems unable to accept this document as a datasource without user
interaction to confirm that the data source is a normal windows default text
file and not Japanese or Arabic. This user dialog box prevents transparent
background processing of the mailmerge.

> My second attempt was to export the data as an Excel document. Now, the ,ail merge operates transparently if I use the OLEDB limkage in Word xp, but

the data appears to be filtered. ASCII 167 is filtered during the mail merge
ruining barcode. Using the Excel via converter option to connect to the
spreadsheet correctly imports the data (including ASCII 167) but now pops up
another user dialog asking whether to use the entire workbook.

> Direct linkage to the Access db is not really an option either because of the open nature of the password stored in the link.
> Has anyone else come across these problems and found a solution?
> Thanks,
> George

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George D - 28 Oct 2003 20:51 GMT

Thanks for the suggestions, Peter.

I seem to have managed to solve this by building a query
in Access that contains the barcode data, then exporting
its contents using DoCmd.OutputTo to an RTF file, which
then becomes the data source for the mail merge. This
seems to be the only format that works in the background
with no dialog windows popping up.

Cheers,
George

>-----Original Message-----
>> Has anyone else come across these problems
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