Mail merge won't read excel file

[Lisa at YSKP]

I'm trying to use an extensive excel table to create individual reports for
members. Word says it can't open the table. There is some extensive formulas
in the excel table and the number of fields (row headers) is probably 15.
Using word/excel 2003.

 

[Peter Jamieson]

The simplest workaround is likely to be to Edit->Copy your sheet and
Edit->Paste into a new Word document, then use that as the data source.

As for the underlying problem,
a. can you open simple, test data sources?
b. can you open the data source using any of the connection methods
available in Word 2003? (check Word Tools->Options-General-Confirm
conversions at open, go through the connection process again, and try the
DDE, OLE DB and ODBC options (there may also be a Converter option)?
c. is the sheet open or closed when you attempt the merge?
d. have you turned the sheet into a list/table for database operations,
grouping etc.? (if so, it may be worth undoing that, but sometimes the
problem seems to remain even then).

(Not sure it is relevant but do you have a large number of rows?)