re-establish a DDE connection

[Brenda from Michigan]

Word and Excel 2002 SP3

Excel document has formatting, dates, currency, SSN, etc. to merge into
Word, so we need to use DDE to retain those formats. Until recently, merges
worked fine. User thinks a co-worker “did something to my machine.†When
she merges with some, not all, of her letters, she gets the dreaded “Word
could not re-establish a DDE connection to Microsoft Excel to complete the
current task.â€

- In Excel, Ignore Other Applications is unchecked.
- Confirm Conversion at Open is checked.
- The Excel file is 670KB.
- To copy just data to a new spreadsheet would cause a lot of formatting to
need re-creation, so I have copied (Select All) the spreadsheet to a new
workbook.
- I inserted the letter into a new document.
- I renamed normal.dot.

In one case the letter inserted into a new document worked, but this method
did not work using another of her letters.

I have no idea why all the letters worked fine up until last Friday. Short
of reinstalling the suite, which I doubt would work anyway, what else is
there to try? I’m stumped!

 

[Peter Jamieson]

<<
Short of reinstalling the suite, which I doubt would work anyway, what
else is there to try? I’m stumped!
So am I, really, but a few additional things you could check
a. the only time I've ever seen someone find a specific cause for this
problem, he reported...

-----------------------------------------------------

Putting a simple DDE field to call Excel into Word also hangs it. I think
the problem may be that DDE from Word has ceased working entirely.

I fixed this. Apparently the problem was that I had removed an old HP
OfficeJet printer driver (which was unused, and had not been selected
on either the word file or the the spreadsheet). To fix it, I removed
the application as well as the driver, cleaned the printer spooler (by
removing all drivers), and reinstalled them (which involved hacking
the registry around to reinstate the standard TCP/IP port monitor).
This appears to fix it. Therefore it seems one of the possible causes
of the DDE hang when mail-merging is to do with printer drivers.
-----------------------------------------------------


b. if you have not already done so, try shutting down and restarting
Windows
c. it is probably worth checking that the template that the mail merge
main document is attached to does not have the data source attached to
it (i.e. ensure that only the document has the data source attached)
d. it is probably worth opening the mail merge main document, then
detaching the data source (change the Mail merge main document back to a
Normal Word document using the first button on the Mailmerge toolbar).
Then save and close the document, then re-open and try to attach the
data source again.
e. it is probably worth trying to save/remove Word's registry "data
key" as per

http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/MissingMenusEtc.htm

(even though the article does deal with another issue)

Warning - deleting this key will mean that your user will lose quite a
few Word settings.
f. I have seen suggestions that these DDE connection problems
sometimes occur when some other application that uses DDE has a
"blocked" connection that blocks up the whole DDE system. However,
unless something new is happening on your user's machine since Friday
that doesn't sound like it can be the cause here. It may however be
worth using Task Manager to check that there are no unexpected copies of
Word or Excel running. Also, I think the following KB article may be
related:
g. There is one possibly relevant KB article:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/892850

Unfortunately, if you are using Windows 2000, you have to contact MS
support to get a fix. If you're using Windows XP, I believe the fix is
in SP3.

h. It may also be worth checking that basic DDE operations work from
within Word, e.g....

Start Word, then insert a { DDE } field into a blank Word document as
follows:

{ DDE Winword System Sysitems }

(use ctrl-F9 to insert the special {} - everything else is text)

Select the field and use F9 to update it. The result should look
something like the following . If necessary, use Alt-F9 to see the result.

SYSITEMS TOPICS FORMATS

If that works, it says that DDE is working well enough for Word to be
able to communicate with itself. If not, DDE is definitely in trouble on
your system!

If it worked, you can try starting Excel first, then use the same
approach except use:

{ DDE EXCEL SYSTEM SYSITEMS }

If that doesn't work, then there is indeed something wrong with DDE that
needs fixing. Trouble is, I do not know how, and although I can think of
further tests, I'm not sure they will lead to a resolution. But...

If it does work, it may also be worth verifying that Word does the right
thing when Excel is not already open.

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

 

[Brenda from Michigan]

Thank you for all the ideas. I've been researching this problem and found a
lot of stuff. All seem to agree that DDE is 'flakey.' I'll work with some
of these ideas and see what happens. Thank you so much!

 

[macropod]

Hi Brenda,

Have you tried repairing your Office Installation (Help|Detect & Repair)?