Mail Merge Documents - New Data Path

[Michael Mantkowski]

We use Word Documents setup with Mail Merge fields. The source document is a
comma delimited text file with a header record. The file is called
MailMerge.csv.

Our software that creates the source file has come out with a new verison
that changes where the MailMerge.csv file is created. We would like to
change our documents to match. We are having difficulty doing this.

Some documents will not take the change and revert back to the old path even
after saving. In the new Word 2007, we have not been able to change any of
them. With Word 2003 we can somtimes get them to change.

Can anyone tell me the steps in Word 2003 and 2007 to change and save the
source document path?

Thanks

 

[Peter Jamieson]

Do you still have a copy of the data source in the location where it used to
be, or can you put one there, i.e. so that you can open the .doc without
getting an error about the file being missing?

If so, as a general rule I would
a. enable the mail merge toolbar
b. open the mailmerge main document
c. save various pieces of information about the document
- if your mail merge main documents have filters and sort options
applied, you need to save the filter/sort options or data source query text.
If they know they don't, you can ignore this one. To see the filter/sort
options, click the Edit Recipients button (3rd from left), click on the
drop-down at the top of one of the columns, and select Advanced... To see
the data source query text (which is if you like what Word creates from the
Advanced... options), open the VBA Editor and type the following in the
Immediate window:

print ActiveDocument.MailMerge.DataSource.QueryString

- what is the destination of the merge (printer, new document etc.)
- what type of merge (click the first button in the MailMerge toolbar)
d. click the first button in the MailMerge toolbar and set the document
type to "Normal Word Document"
e. connect to the new data source
f. re-apply the stuff you found in (c)
g. save the document.
h.. reopen and test

Clearly that's quite a lot, which I would probably try to do using a VBA
macro (Off the top of my head I don't know how to discover or restore the
destination without using VBA). Also, I haven't been able to see if Word
2007 has any particular problems. But maybe it's a start.

Peter Jamieson