Merge doc not saving link to excel file linked via DDE

[Jason Hand]

Word merge documents that have been working for more than a year are all of
the sudden no longer holding the link to the excel file that is the merge
data via DDE. I tried changing to OLEDB and it holds but we lose the
formatting and really need it to stay DDE. When it says that it can't locate
the .xls file I can browse to it and reconnect if via DDE just fine, but
after saving the document and bringing it back up the link is broken again
and it can't find it. No windows or office updates have been applied
recently and I have tried to even create a new excel file and link it to an
existing Word doc and use DDE and it doesn't hold either. Any ideas what
changed or is wrong?

Thanks,
Jason

 

[Peter Jamieson]

Are you seeing the messages in Word that suggest it is /trying/ to connect?
(in that case, Word probably is retaining the connection information and it
is more likely that something is broken, perhaps even in the Windows DDE
system).

It is probably worth trying Word->Help->Detect and Repair or the Word 2007
equivalent.

 

[Jason Hand]

Peter,

As soon as you open the document you get the usual window indicating that it
is going to do a query but I can't tell if it trying to or not but I suspect
it is trying to connect.

How could I tell if the DDE system was the problem? Is there any known way
to repair that?

I will try the repair option as well though.

Thanks,
Jason

 

[Peter Jamieson]

<<
As soon as you open the document you get the usual window indicating that it
is going to do a query
That's the question about SQL? If so, does the connection fail /immediately/
after you respond to that message or does it take a while (say 30-60
seconds) ?

If it's immediate, it probably isn't anything to do with DDE.

If it takes a while, I would suspect it's trying to connect. Whether the
problem is actually then DDE or something else I couldn't say. But,
a. I would use Alt-tab to ensure that Excel has not popped up any dialog
boxes (sometimes they appear behind Word).
b. I do not think this is likely to have changed unless someone has
introduced an Excel workbook with code to change it, but look at Excel
Tools|Options to ensure that Excel is set up to respond to DDE requests.

<<
How could I tell if the DDE system was the problem?
Other than that, one thing you can do is insert a DDE field - e.g. press
ctrl-F9 for the special {}, then type

DDE WINWORD SYSTEM SYSITEMS between the {} to give you

{ DDE WINWORD SYSTEM SYSITEMS }

Select that, press F9 to evaluate the field, and use Alt-F9 if necessary to
see the result. You should see something like

SYSITEMS TOPICS FORMATS

If so, that will tell you that Word is managing to connect "to itself" via
DDE, i.e. that at least some of DDE is functioning.

You could try

{ DDE EXCEL SYSTEM SYSITEMS }

and see what happens...

<<
Is there any known way
to repair that?
I've never got that fa so I don't really know...

(NB I will probably be offline from Mon. to Fri.)