Data Form button

[Carla Bradley]

I have a client that uses mail merge, but she doesn't use source data. She
uses the data form button to create entries. She has Word 2003. Now when she
clicks the data form button nothing happens. I was able to get her to that
menu by using the mail merge wizard, but she won't do that. Wants to just
open the document and click the data form button and enter her data. Any
ideas why it may not be working?

 

[Peter Jamieson]

When you use the data form you /are/ using source data. If she previously
used an earlier version of Word, I would guess that she, or someone, had
created a Word document, set it up as a mail merge main document with a
specific data source (probably another Word document if it was in Word 2000
or 97) and saved it. Then all she would have to do to use it would be to
open the document and go into the edit function.

In Word 2003 you can probably do something very similar. However,
a. if you create a data source using the mail merge wizard in Word 2003,
Word creates a special form of single-table Jet (Access) .mdb called an
Office Address List
b. you would need to find the Edit Mail Merge List command and put it on a
toolbar - you can find it by opening Tools|Customize, selecting category All
Commands, and looking in the alphabetic list on the right.

I hope that gives you some clues, anyway.


Peter Jamieson

 

[Carla Bradley]

I had incorrect information. She had this to say.

The Data Form does come up and I am able to input the information. What
doesn’t work is the View Source button on the Data Form. Before I could hit
View Source and it would show what I had typed in the Data Form. Now it just
disappears. The question that needs to be asked is how to make the View
Source work on the Data Form. The importance of being able to use View
Source is that I can spellcheck there. Bottom line is that I need somewhere
to spellcheck my inputted information. If we can find out either how to make
View Source work or find an alternate way to spellcheck the inputted
information, that is what I need.

 

[Peter Jamieson]

If the data source is a table in a Word document, it is still possible to
use the Edit button in Edit|Recipients, and it is still possible to open the
data source document and use all Word's spellchecking facilities. The main
drawback is that Word 2003 opens Word data sources much more slowly than
Word 2000 (probably not a problem for small data sources but definitely a
problem for large ones).

Not sure whether that is enough for a workable system but I'm not sure how
else she will get both editability and spellchecking.

Peter Jamieson

 

[Carla Bradley]

I tried to talk her into have a source document, but she refuses. She types
each person in on the fly using the data form button. So for example if she
has to send the letter to two people, she opens the letter and clicks the
data form button and enters the two. She uses view source for spell check
(which now does nothing when you click it) and merges the document.

 

[Peter Jamieson]

I must admit I've never worked that way - I can have a look at how it worked
in the version of Word she was using before if you can tell me what version
that was. However, I suspect that in Word 2003 a data document will be
needed, and it's really a question of how to make that behave in as
congenial way as possible.

Peter Jamieson