Mail Merge doesn't work - HELP!!

[NCSteve]

When I use and run the mail merge (email throught Outlook 2003) from Word
2003 it goes thru the motions but does not send anything. When I run the
mail merge from Outlook I get the error "there must be at least one name or
distribution list in the To, Cc, or Bcc box." when I hit the send button. I
have run detect and repair but to no avail. I am using and Excel worksheet
as the data source and everything is there in the preview. It just won't
send the emails.

 

[Peter Jamieson]

When you merge to e-mail, you should see a dialog box that prompts for "To",
"Subject line" and "Mail format". Are you filling in the "To" field? Does
the "To" field definitely contain a valid e-mail address, and is it getting
through to Word (not everything in an Excel sheet necessarily does, but you
can check by temporarily inserting the same field as a MERGEFIELD in your
mail merge main document, merging to a new document and seeing if the
addresses get through as expected.

Peter Jamieson

 

[NCSteve]

Peter, thanks for the reply. Yes I do get the dialog box and the email field
is in the "To" box. The same field is in the body of the letter and when I
preview the merge it is pulling the valid email addresses into the letter as
expected.

Everything looks good with the exception that the emails don't get sent out.
Any other suggestions?

 

[Peter Jamieson]

Any other suggestions?

Not really - quite a few people have reported a problem where e-mails either
go missing altogether (are not sent and do not appear in the Outbox) or get
stuck in the Outbox, but I don't think I've ever seen a case where there is
no "To" in the e-mails in the Outbox.

I can only refer you to some of the possibilities I've posted in the past,
and most of these actually refer to a different problem of "disappearing
emails" (see below). I don't suppose it makes any difference whether you
specify HTML, plain text or attachment?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Disappearing emails" is occasionally reported but there seems to be no
single obvious reason for it, so if you do discover the reason in your case
it would be helpful if you could post back. Some things to look at and/or
try:
a. is Outlook the default Mail program (IE Tools|Internet Options|programs)
?
b. Check Outlook Tools|Options|Other|"Advanced options"|"Enable mail
logging (troubleshooting)". Then restart.
c. if you have a COM Addin called bxAutoZip (see Outlook
Tools|Options|Other|"Advanced Options"|"COM Addins") disable it temporarily.
(If you have other addins and disabling them will do no harm, I'd do that
too).
d. make sure you know where your .pst file is, make a backup copy, and run
the SCANPST.EXE utility - on my system it's in

C:\Program Files\Common Files\System\MSMAPI\1033 )
e. ensure you only have one mail profile (Control Panel|Mail|Show
Profiles)
f. recreate your Outlook profile (I don't have a good set of instructions
for that right now)

 

[NCSteve]

Peter, Thanks, I looked in the Add-ins and I have a McAfee anti virus
add-in. I unchecked it and the merge works!! Although I get a warning
message between each email suggesting that there might be a virus attempting
to send out emails and sking if I want to continue. Do you know to get rid
of that warning?

 

[Peter Jamieson]

Very useful feedback...

If it's the standard Outlook messages you're seeing, the free utility at

http://www.contextmagic.com/express-clickyes/

should get rid of them for you. (You may also be able to use HTML mail but
IMO plain text is the most likely to get through and be read).

Peter Jamieson