Mail Merge Issue with Word/Access 2003

[Andrew Williams]

We recently upgraded to Office 2003 and have discovered a
problem with our existing mail merge documents. We have
several documents that use a query within an Access
database as the data source. The problem relates to the
use of queries that prompt for parameters.

For example, we have one query that prompts for a from
and to date to retrieve all records between two dates.
We then have a Word document that uses this as the mail
merge data. Each time we run the merge it would be for a
different range of dates. This has worked well in
previous versions of Office because it meant that we had
one document, one database, and one query.

It appears that Office 2003 only allows merges with
Access tables or Access queries without prompts. Has
anyone had a similar issue? Any advice would be
appreciated.

Regards,
Andrew Williams
Human Resources
University of Southern Queensland
Toowoomba Australia

 

[Peter Jamieson]

You have to revert to the old DDE connection method to use parameter
queries - check Word Tools|Options|General|"Confirm conversions on
open", go through the connection procedure again, and check the DDE
option when it is offered.

Peter Jamieson

 

[Andrew Williams]

Thanks Peter. After making this change I now get the
following error when I first load the file;

"The operation cannot be completed because of dialog or
database engin failures. Please try again later."

However, after re-connecting to the database everthing
works OK. This method appears to be a bit messy, but at
least it works.

Thanks for your advice.
Andrew