Real Problem With Mail Merge

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Ms Bay - 24 Mar 2006 10:21 GMT

Hi
I am using Office 2000 Premium and I can't get the mail merge to work. I
have about 50 addresses that I am trying to use from an Excel spreadsheet and
merge with a return address in Word. I have just downloaded every one of the
latest updates and it still won't work (the error messaging I was getting at
first said this is what I needed to do). When I do the Get Data Source and
click on my file the whole box goes white and I get an error (of course with
no error message this time since I have downloaded everything!) Can anyone
help me? I am really getting flustered with this now.

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Ms Bay

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Peter Jamieson - 26 Mar 2006 21:24 GMT

> and I get an error (of course with
> no error message this time since I have downloaded everything!)

OK, so there is no error message, but is there anything that tells you what
kind of error is occuring? What do you actually see?

As an immediate workaround, if you do not have more than around 63 columns
in your Excel sheet, maybe you could try:
a. in Excel, select your sheet and Edit|Copy
b. in Word, create a new blank document, then use Edit|Paste to paste the
contents of the Excel sheet. Save the document and close it
c. use that document as the data source for your merge

Peter Jamieson

> Hi
> I am using Office 2000 Premium and I can't get the mail merge to work. I
[quoted text clipped - 11 lines]
> anyone
> help me? I am really getting flustered with this now.

Reply to this Message

Ms Bay - 27 Mar 2006 01:48 GMT

Peter, what happens is this: when I click on the "Get Data" tab I select the
open the data source entry, I select my excel document and when I click OK,
the selection goes back to the mail merge menu with only the Get Data tab
showing and everything else is gray. After a few seconds, the whole mail
merge menu turns white and the cursor continuously blinks. No error message
ever comes up, so I don't know what the problem is.

Thanks for your suggestion, though. I tried it, it worked and I'm happy!

Ms Bay

Signature

Ms Bay

> > and I get an error (of course with
> > no error message this time since I have downloaded everything!)
[quoted text clipped - 25 lines]
> > anyone
> > help me? I am really getting flustered with this now.

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Peter Jamieson - 27 Mar 2006 13:02 GMT

Well, at least something worked.

I don't remember seeing the problem you describe, but it may be worth trying
to connect to the Excel sheet in other ways.

By default, Word 2000 connects using DDE. If Excel is not open, Word should
start Excel. If your sheet is not open, Word should use DDE to open the
sheet. It may be worth trying again, starting with the sheet open, just
Excel open, or Excel closed, just to see if it makes any difference. You
should also ensure that Excel Tools|Options|General|"Ignore other
applications" is unchecked (which it is by default)

In Word 2000 you may also be able to open the data source using the Excel
converter (if it was installed during Office setup or later) or using ODBC
(if that was installed and a suitable "DSN" exists. To try those, start with
a Word mailmerge main document that is not connected to your Excel sheet,
then in OpenData SOurce, select your Excel workbook, then check the Select
Method checkbox. In the next dialog box you should see the connection
options appropriate to the .xls. In the case of ODBC, you will need to click
the Options button and check the four boxes in there before you can see the
Sheets in the data source.

Peter Jamieson

> Peter, what happens is this: when I click on the "Get Data" tab I select
> the
[quoted text clipped - 46 lines]
>> > anyone
>> > help me? I am really getting flustered with this now.

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