MS Access Database via DDE option not available

[Laura]

I have an exsisting mail merge with Word2003/Access2003 that I use only once
a year for Vacation Bible School at my church. This year it decided not to
work! THe mail merge pulls data from a query in Access to create letters in
Word.

I have read several posts and have made a little progress, but I am still
stuck. I have checked the "Confirm conversions at open", and when I get to
Open Data Source, the "MS Access Database via DDE" option is not available.
I have tried the "MS Access Database via ODBC" and that does not work. I
know I need the DDE one from what I have read in other posts, but how do I
get it?

Thanks,
Laura

 

[Peter Jamieson]

Do you definitely need to use DDE (you may need to, if for example you are
using a parameter query in Access as the data source)? If not, do you see
the OLE DB Database Files option? If so, try that.

Otherwise, does the option appear if you check the "Show all" box in the
"Confirm Data Source" dialog box?

I don't know why the DDE option does not appear - the most likely reason
would be that you are not selecting a file with a .mdb or .mde extension,
but that seems unlikely in this case.

Peter Jamieson

 

[Laura]

Yes, I think I need DDE. My data is coming from a parameter query that asks
for one piece of data.

I tried the OLE DB Database Files, and that did not give me any queries to
choose from, just tables.

I also had already clicked the "Show all" box to give more options, but it
is still not there. And, my file name is vbs.mdb.

I suppose I could make my query into a make-table query, but I would like
for it to work the right way. I didn't mention this earlier, but this mail
merge works fine at my house, but when I bring it to the church it doesn't
work. I don't know what is different about the church.

Thank you,
Laura

 

[Peter Jamieson]

I have never seen this before and the only potentially relevant article I
can find is at

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/137076/en-us

which says that you have to have certain Windows registry entries. However,
that's a very old article about old versions of Windows and Word. As an
experiment, I removed the relevant registry entries for Access here
(WinXP/Word2003/Access2003) and the DDE option appeared. However, when I
selected it, Word was unable to make the connection. In other words, those
entries are needed, but removing them does not have precisely the effect you
are seeing.

Another article, for Word 2000

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/211193/en-us

suggests that if DDE does not appear in the list, you need to
uninstall/reinstall Access. I would suggest that in Office 2003, you ensure
you have the Office 2003 CDs ready and use Access Help|Deect and Repair and
see if that makes any difference.

Peter Jamieson

 

[Laura]

I will not be back at the church until Thursday to try these out, but thank
you for your time. I read the articles and will try these solutions
tomorrow. I will let you know what works. Thanks again.

Laura