Mail Merge Error--Word 2007/Outlook 2007

[lilkel31]

Hi! I am trying to create mailing labels in Word 2007 using my Outlook 2007
contacts. If I go into Outlook 2007 and hit the mail merge feature, after it
launches Word and I "setup" the document as it tells me to, the page is blank
and does nothing. If I start out in Word using the mail merge feature, I get
the document set up and then hit the "choose recipients" option and select my
Outlook contacts and get the following error message:
"Either there is no default mail client or the current mail client cannot
fulfill the messaging request. Please run Microsoft Office Outlook and set
it as the default mail client."

Now, I use Outlook Express for my email, but for the purpose of making these
labels, I went into Outlook and went to Tools-Options-Other and put a
checkmark in the box that says make outlook the default program for email,
contacts and calendar. This didn't help, I still got the same message when
trying to merge the list.
Is there something I'm doing wrong with the mail merge, or is there some way
to get this to work out?

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

A work around would be to export the contact list from Outlook to Excel.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[lilkel31]

I'm sorry, can someone explain how I do that? Is there a simple merge type
feature in Excel too. I'm an experienced Word/Excel/Office user, but I've
never gone from Outlook to Excel then to Word. (I used to have my address in
an Access database that I exported from before switching over to 2007.) Is
this error message I'm receiving a glitch that is in need of a workaround, or
is there something I'm not doing properly that I can fix in order to get my
contacts directly from Outlook to Excel without a workaround?

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

After you click on the Setup button and select the label type that you want
to use, did you then click on the Edit button in Section 1 of the Mail Merge
Helper dialog and select the Mailing Label: Document Number# that will
appear under that button. After doing that, you need to click on the Insert
Merge Field button i the Write & Insert Fields section of the Mailings tab
of the ribbon. After setting up the fields that you want in the first cell
in the table in the main document, you must then click on the Update Labels
button in the Write & Insert Fields section of the ribbon to cause the
fields to be replicated to the other labels on the sheet.

How does what you have done differ from the above description of how to go
about it?

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[lilkel31]

I guess I was used to 2003 where the names and addresses automatically popped
in once you hit the merge button. Following your instructions, I got the
merge to work direct from Outlook to Word, I just had to start in Outlook. I
still get that original error if I start in Word. Now I just need to find
the right labels in the template, it doesn't seem to have the old listing of
Avery labels, just gotta play around. Thanks for the help, they need to put
that in a tutorial. If you go to the office tutorials, all I could find was
a mail merge tutorial that goes with 2003, doesn't explain going up to the
ribbon and setting the fields/updating cells. Once I followed that part from
your description, I still didn't have names and addresses, just the field
markers, but then I saw the "preview" button and the names jumped in and
found the "finish and merge" button to create the final product. (Still not
done though because I chose microsoft labels 30 per page and they were
landscape and didn't fit the addresses in right-gotta tinker there, like I
said.)
Thanks again--hopefully I'll be able to get it to work again once I tinker a
little more. It's a win when I could actually see my addresses in Word!!