Opening Access Database

[Lowenda]

I have done a mail merge in word and all my data seems to be in stored as an
Access database, but if I go to Access I can't open the database. It comes
up with error 3343 - unrecognized database format.

I am trying to print off a copy of my database.

I have Works Suite 2002. Unfortunately I don't know which version of Access
I have. I'm not terribly computer literate. How do I find out?

 

[Jeff Boyce]

Lowenda

I don't believe Access is included in the Works Suite. You can check at
www.microsoft.com

--
Regards

Jeff Boyce
www.InformationFutures.net

Microsoft Office/Access MVP


Microsoft IT Academy Program Mentor
http://microsoftitacademy.com/

 

[Lance]

Silly question.. but...

What is the name of the file its exporting? And in particular what is the
file extension? Is it something like myfile.MDB ?

 

[Lowenda]

Hi Lance

Not a silly question at all. As I said I'm a bit of a novice.

If i open Windows Explorer it is stored in my Data Sources as a Microsoft
Access Database and is an .mdb file. I am running Windows XP if that helps
and I created the mail merge in Word. The only way I can open it is to pull
up a Word Document and then open my data source. I can merge it into a label
or another document but I really wanted it on a spreadsheet or in some other
form to use as a hard copy (ie paper) for easy reference. I have Microsoft
Access on my system from, I think, an Professional Office 97 package which I
got from work cos I do some work from home.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Lance]

OK, just wanted to make sure you weren't trying to open a file that was
flagged to default to MS Access.. when it shouldn't have been. But rereading
the question, that wasn't a likely problem, but I did just have somebody with
that problem.. so it was the first thing that came to mind.

Anyway... I think what is happening is that Word is exporting your file as a
newer version of Access than you have. You can verify this by going into
word, and select Help->About Microsoft Office Word. If you have MS Word 2000
or 2003 or whatever, it will export to a newer version of Access... which
Access 97 cannot read.

I'm not familiar with mail merging in Word, but it might be possible to
choose an older version of Access as your data source. Also you might be
able to choose Excel as your data source as well, it's a lot less picky than
Access is about opening files. Perhaps somebody else can verify/guide you