Executing Word 2003 Mailmerge from Access 2000 module running in Access 2003

[ML]

I have asked before about the problems of getting an Access 2000/Word 2000
mailmerge setup to work in Office 2003.
I am partially thru this process. (I have noted the changes made.)

However I have a client setup which is bizarre.

Most workstations are still in Office 2000 and the shared Access system is
compiled in Access 2000.

The user who needs to run the mailmerge is using Office 2003. (Their
choice - not mine).

We have got past finding the merge data (the programs actually extract data
from Access into an Excel spreadsheet and merge from there.)

But when it comes to the merge into Word 2003 (all of this running inside
Access 2003), the fields match up but the date fields
REFUSE to display in European format - even when each merge date field has
been explicitly formatted as dd/mm/yyyy in the doc.

If I take this Word 2003 mailmerge document as stand alone and open it up,
it merges correctly, with the dates correctly European.

So executing Word 2003 mailmerge from within Access 2003 - stuffs up the
Word doc date formats but executing Word 2003
mailmerge stand alone is OK.

Any ideas.

TIA Michael

 

[Albert D. Kallal]

This is likely the regional settings on the computer issue....

just export/use a query in ms-access. (besides, merging on a table does not
allow you to set the sort order anyway).

So, merge using a query, and simply add a column to the query that has the
date formatted the way you want.

So, I not sure how much merging you done, but after using ms-access and word
for about 1 hour, I conclude that to set things like the sort order, or date
format, you simply use ht query to do this, and all your problems go away.

So, just add a format column to your query. In the query builder it will
look like:

eg:

MyDateF:format([DateField],"mm/dd/yy")

I mean, how did you set the order of the data before anyway? Regardless, use
a query, setup a column in the format you need, and this will IGNORE the
users MANY MANY regional settings.

 

[Jonathan]

I have asked before about the problems of getting an Access 2000/Word 2000
mailmerge setup to work in Office 2003.
I am partially thru this process. (I have noted the changes made.)

However I have a client setup which is bizarre.

Most workstations are still in Office 2000 and the shared Access system is
compiled in Access 2000.

The user who needs to run the mailmerge is using Office 2003. (Their
choice - not mine).

We have got past finding the merge data (the programs actually extract data
from Access into an Excel spreadsheet and merge from there.)

But when it comes to the merge into Word 2003 (all of this running inside
Access 2003), the fields match up but the date fields
REFUSE to display in European format - even when each merge date field has
been explicitly formatted as dd/mm/yyyy in the doc.

If I take this Word 2003 mailmerge document as stand alone and open it up,
it merges correctly, with the dates correctly European.

So executing Word 2003 mailmerge from within Access 2003 - stuffs up the
Word doc date formats but executing Word 2003
mailmerge stand alone is OK.

Any ideas.

TIA Michael

Hi Michael, this is a documented problem. Unfortunitely I cannot remember
the knowledgebase article. I recommend that you visit the MS Word discussion
group and do a search.

The solution has something to do with dde. You have to use >>Toolson open'.

Basically microsoft developers did not allow for mail merge when converting
from odbc to ado.

Luck
Jonathan Parminter

 

[ML]

Thanks for your efforts Albert.

The programs were written by another. They are a series of "work arounds"
to get past original Access97/Mailmerge bugs.

But the system has worked for some years in Office 2000 context.

Essentially, the merge is from an Excel table. The mailmerge source for the
word docs is an excel table, which is loaded from
an Access query. The Excel table is always in the correct sort order and
visual inspection shows the dates in European format.

If I have the table already existing, (normal before the merge is executed),
the stand alone word 2003/mailmerge process works perfectly.
All dates are in European format.

If I execute the word 2003/mailmerge from within an Access 2003 VBA process,
all of the dates are in American format.

Every date in the word doc has been given a format ..."dd/mm/yyyy" to
overule any format (default or otherwise) that the date field
may have been carrying previously.

It still executes in American, ignoring the formats in the word doc.

Naturally we have reset all KNOWN setting of locale to Australia (European
date/time format).

But somehow, running Word 2003/mailmerge WITHIN Access 2003 with table in
Excel 2003, ignores the
"hardwired" date formats in the Word 2003 doc.

Asking someome to attend on the 11th of July instead of the 7th of November
is very frustrating!

Regards,
Michael