Mail merge running in circles

[Andre7266]

I am using Word 2003 SP3. When I open a mail merge document, I get the
message "Opening this document will run the following SQL command...Select *
from C:\test\Test data.txt......Data from your database will be placed in the
document. Do you want to continue?...I click Yes and get the message Test
Data.doc is a mail merge main document. Word cannot find its data source
C:\...\test data.txt. Two boxes are then displayed....Find Data Source and
Options. I step thru Find Data Source to locate the data file again. I
highlight the correct file and click OK and the error message returns along
with the two boxes above. The only way out of this cycle is to click on
options and disable everything and start over. Even if I recreate the
document, the next time I run mailmerge, I run into this same problem. Does
anyone have a solution??????????? Thanks

 

[Peter Jamieson]

OK, broadly speaking I do not get this here with a simple .txt data file.

1. If you create a very simple plain text file with 2 columns,
tab-separated, a header column and a couple of data rows, then create a
completely new mail merge main document, do you get the same problem?

(e.g.

k t
1 text1
2 text2

)

2. If that works, but starting with a new mail merge main document and
connecting to "test data.txt" does not, maybe the problem is related to the
content.
print activedocument.mailmerge.datasource.name. Is "test data.txt"
definitely a plain text file? How many columns (fields) does it have, how
many rows, and what are the field and record delimiters?

 

[Andre7266]

It is even more bothersome than that. In one office with 2 desktop machines,
these mail merge letters are working fine. In 2 other offices with a total of
8 machines, I cannot get around this error. It is a plain text file, 18
columns, name and address info mostly. All machines are running the same
level of word with same service packs on Windows XP. I cannot figure out why
those 2 machines and my laptop run all these letters fine and the other 8
will not.

The .txt file has 18 columns, tab delimited. Could be anywhere from 1 to 100
records for these letters.

 

[Andre7266]

I just ran a simple test with a text file with 2 columns, first name and last
name with 4 records. The mail merge ran fine!!! ???
Another note - I copied the letters and text files that were running fine in
office 1 and brought them to office 2 & 3.. and they did not run.

But..the simple test is probably more significant. This is beginning to feel
like something is wrong with my input files???

 

[Peter Jamieson]

But..the simple test is probably more significant. This is beginning to

feel
like something is wrong with my input files???

My view on the evidence I have is that it's more likely something about the
configuration in offices 2 & 3, particularly if everything was working OK
until recently.

At the moment I would guess that there could be some difference to do with
the access permissions to the folders containing the mail merge data source
in those offices.