Mail merge looks for addresses in Outlook instead of data source

[Karen]

I am unable to do mail merges for the last few weeks.
Since I've downloaded all the "Security" updates from
Microsoft. I set up a simple mail merge to email and
select the data source. When I try to send the emails,
Word looks in my Outlook address book for the email
addresses and if the first name matches the email address
in the data source it sends the message to that email
address not the one in the data source. Does anyone have
a solution for this problem? The only solution we have
found here is to go back to Office 2000 which seems like
a stupid solution.

Help!

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

I haven't heard of that problem before, but the folks in the Outlook
Newsgroups may be able to help you.

--
Please post any further questions or followup to the newsgroups for the
benefit of others who may be interested. Unsolicited questions forwarded
directly to me will only be answered on a paid consulting basis.

Hope this helps
Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi Karen,

I'm not quite clear on what's happening. Let's start with
the version of Word involved?

And then, what things have to match? I can't see how a
person's first name will match the email address, as
people's first names don't contain the @ sign, and an email
address will...

I am unable to do mail merges for the last few weeks.
Since I've downloaded all the "Security" updates from
Microsoft. I set up a simple mail merge to email and
select the data source. When I try to send the emails,
Word looks in my Outlook address book for the email
addresses and if the first name matches the email address
in the data source it sends the message to that email
address not the one in the data source. Does anyone have
a solution for this problem? The only solution we have
found here is to go back to Office 2000 which seems like
a stupid solution.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Sep
30 2003)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any
follow question or reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail

 

[Karen]

Hi Cindy,

I am using Office 2003 so Word, Excel and Outlook are
2003. It is a simple email merge with one merge field:
<First Name>. The data source is an Excel spreadsheet
with email address, first name, last name and company
name.

I open up the merge document and the data source and can
preview the merged letters. I then merge to email and
change mail format to plain text and click OK. Then I get
dialog boxes trying to match my email addresses with ones
in my Outlook address book. If the person in the excel
list is called Ann and I have an Ann in my address book,
it sends the email to the Ann in the address book not the
Ann in the data source. These emails are sent only to
recipients whose first name happen to reside in my
address book. The data source emails are not sent. Aside
from the fact that the new security settings in Outlook
2003 now require that I click OK to approve each email
(which I bypassed with a utility) now I have this problem
with the data source. Frankly, my IT guy does not know
how to fix the problem other than to uninstall Office
2003 and install Office 2000.

Any assistance would be appreciated to fix this problem.

Thank you,

Karen

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

It sounds to me like when you are executing the merge to email that rather
than selecting the data field that contains the email addresses in To: drop
down of the Message options section of the Merge to E-mail dialog, you are
selecting the First Name field instead and as that is not recognised as an
email address (something with an @ in it) Outlook is trying to match the
data in that field with names in your address book.

--
Please post any further questions or followup to the newsgroups for the
benefit of others who may be interested. Unsolicited questions forwarded
directly to me will only be answered on a paid consulting basis.

Hope this helps
Doug Robbins - Word MVP