Templates and Merging from Access database

[Chris]

Not sure if this is the right forum, but . . . .

We are trying to use a central deposit for Templates for our organization
and have created Mail merge templates using an Access back end to post the
data to. Unfortunately, when one person is using the template another person
can not. How do you use a central depository for Templates and still allow
multiple user to access them at the same time??

Is there a way for Word to "create" multiple instances of the database so
more than one user can use the template concurrently?

 

[Peter Jamieson]

As far as I know, the summary of Word's behaviour in this area is
roughly as follows:
a. Word will only let you edit data in any kind of Access database
/from within Word/ if Word has exclusive access to the data
b. If your data source is an Office Address List (OAL), Word 2002-2007
will let one user edit it, and modify the fields in it, at a time
c. If your data source is an Access database that is not an OAL, only
Word 2007 will offer the Edit button, and even that works according to
point (a). You may even find in some cases that Word will not open a
document that is connected to an Access data source that is already open
in Access.
d. If you try to get Word to open its data source in a mode that
/should/ allow non-exclusive editing (e.g. Share Deny None), e.g. using
a .odc file, Word will not even offer the Edit option, but in Word 2007
it will still let you refresh the current view of the records.
e. If your Word mail merge main documents are actually trying to
connect to a "back end" that is a SQL Server database, Word does not
offer the Edit button anyway.

I have to say that I have not researched this exhaustively, so there may
be a way through it all, but so far I have not found one - the
conclusion is that Word can edit "personal data", Word can edit shared
..mdb data if no-one else is accessing it (and how exactly does one
control that?), but otherwise, editing has to be done by something other
than the facilities offered from within Mail Merge.

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk