Mailmerge using a secure database

[Suzanne]

Can anyone help.... I just recently set up user-level security on my ms
access database (.mdb). I have multiple mailmerges through word connected to
my access database that will not open now because of the security. I
unsuccessfully tried to set up a new (MyDSN) User DSN using the ODBC
Administrator, when connecting to MyDSN everything goes well, i select the
query i want and then when i finish i get the error message "word cannot open
+connect to new datasource.odc as a data or header source because it contains
no data". I don't understand what i'm doing wrong. Is there another approach
to this problem? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Peter Jamieson]

1. Which version(s) of Office/Word/Windows. (And are you setting this up
for yourself, a few users, or lots of users?)

2. Do you need or want specifically to connect with ODBC? OLE DB is the
default in Word 2002 and later and you may find ODBC connections
increasingly problematic with Word 2007 and/or Vista, especially Vista
64-bit? For ODBC you need DSNs, but for OLE DB you typically need .odc
files (or .udl files, maybe), although it is may be possible to do
without either.

3. Does your security database have a long pathname? If so, you are
likely to run into problems where Word truncates the connection string
containing logon information. You may be able to connect first time but
not subsequently. If you are encountering this problem, it may be better
to relocate/rename your security database so that it has the shortest
pathname you can manage.

4. When you re-opened your existing mail merge main documents I imagine
that they would fail to connect (not having the correct connection
info.) What happened next? If you were prompted to re-select your
database, were you then prompted for the connection method? If so, did
you see a logon screen? etc.

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

 

[Suzanne]

Thank you for your response, here are the answers to your questions:
1. Microsoft MS Office 2007/Word 2007/Microsoft Window XP Professional
2. I do not need or want to connect specifically with ODBC, when researching
the problem online that was one of the suggestions, so i tried it.
3. Database does not have a long path name.
4. When I tried re-opening my mail merge documents I get an error message
that says “error has occurred could not find the fileâ€. After the error
message the Data Link Properties window pops up, which has the correct path
to the database, but doesn’t ask for database password. After that another
error message "Error has occured: You do not have the encessary permissions
to use the object. Have your system administrator or the person who created
this object establish the appropriate permissions for you."

 

[Suzanne]

Ok so thanks to you my mailmerge is now successful, i'm now connecting with
OLE DB and it's working good!!! Thank you very much for your help!!

 

[Peter Jamieson]

Hi Suzanne,

I was just looking at this again and realising that a .odc was probably now
required, so I was interested to see your message - id that what you needed
in the end, or did you find a way to make it work without an additional
file?

Peter Jamieson