Opening Existing Data Source in Excel

[oykeong]

I am using Windows XP, MS Word 2002 and MS Excel 2002. I am now having
problem with opening my data source in Excel.

When I try to open my Word Main Document, a dialog box opens with this
prompt " Master Purchase Requisition.doc is a mail merge maind document. Word
cannot fints its data source, C:\...\DataForPurchaseRequisition.xls."

When I click the "Find Data Source" button of the above dialog box, another
dialog box entitled "Select Table" appears. I navigated this second dialog
box until I find the relevant Excel Spreadsheet and then click "OK".

After this, however, the first dialog box re-surfaces. I repeated the whole
process and sometimes, another dialog box with the prompt "Word cannot open
the data source" would pop-up.

I hope someone will be able to help me with this.

Thank you very much.

 

[Peter Jamieson]

It isn't completely clear whether you are ever able to connect to your data
source - are you saying
a. that you can connect, but you always have to reconnect when you re-open
your mail merge main document (this is quite a common problem although the
solution is not usually so clear)
or
b. that you cannot connect at all (which is probably a less common problem,
and suggests that there may be a problem in your Excel workbook.

 

[oykeong]

Peter,

Thanks for responding. Initially, the whole mail merge was working
fantastically. As a matter of fact, it had been working for the past one year
or so. But when I opened it just two days ago, the "Word cannot find its
data source" dialog box popped up. From thence onwards, it was not possible
to connect to the data source, as described in my post above.

As for my Excel spreadsheet, I have opened it separately and it functions
perfectly. I can edit, delete, add records etc. etc. It definitely is working
normally. I am very sure of that.

Thanks again for your willingness to help.

 

[Peter Jamieson]

Can you try the following:
a. Make copies of both your mail merge main document and your spreadsheet,
in the same folders where you have them now
b. reconstruct the copy spreadsheet: open it, export the data to .csv,
close, open the .csv and save as .xls (you will lose any formulas etc in the
/copy/ when you do this
c. open the copy mail merge main document, connect it to the copy data
source, save and close
d. re-open the mail merge main document and see what happens.

 

[oykeong]

Hi Peter,

I managed to solve my problem as follows:-

1. Tools>Options>General>Confirm Conversion at Open
2. Then when the Confirm Data Source dialog box appears, I chose Microsoft
Excel Worksheet via Converter

I manged to connect to the data source. However, it seemed to be slower
compared to earlier. But at least it worked.

Thanks anyway for your willingness to help.

 

[Peter Jamieson]

Thanks for the feedback - there are some things that you can do with an
Excel workbook that seem to make it unreadable by the OLE DB/ODBC
provider/driver - e.g. creating a list. But that doesn't always seem to
cause the problem, and I have never pinned down exactly what does.

Re. the converter, be warned that Microsoft has now dropped the Excel
converter, i.e. if you ever got a new machine with (say) Office 2003 you
wouldn't find the converter in Office or the converter pack. I believe
there's a copy on Graham Mayor's site www.gmayor.com