upgrading from 97 to XP

[Louise]

Good afternoon all, can anybody help?

A colleague of mine had Office 97 and has just been upgraded to Office XP.
However, she created numerous mail merges in 97 which she now needs to gain
access to but when she tries to open one of the documents containg the actual
merged letters that were created in 97 she gets this error message:-

Open this document will run the following SQL COmmand:
Select * From U:\my documents\etc....
Data from your database will be placed in the document, do you want to
continue? Yes No

Regardless of whether she chooses Yes or No, it opens the document but it
only has the first merged letter?

Does anybody know why this has happened? I thought when you upgraded to XP
that all your documents, including merge letters, could still be
opened/edited as normal? She has numerous merge files she needs to gain
access to.

Any urgent help would be much appreciated.

Thank you.

Louise

 

[Anne Troy]

She only has the first merged letter? That's correct. She must now run the
merge. She may want to turn on the mail merge toolbar and hit Merge to new
document.
*******************
~Anne Troy

www.OfficeArticles.com
www.MyExpertsOnline.com

 

[Louise]

Hello Anne, thank you for your reply. However, the problem is, it's as if it
doesn't even recognise that it was a merge because the toolbar is completely
greyed out so it won't let you merge to new document. Surely if the document
that was saved in 97 contained all the merged letters (approx. 66) and it was
saved as such, that all the letters would still be there when opened in XP?

Also, what does the SQL message mean? Any ideas??

Thank you.

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi =?Utf-8?B?TG91aXNl?=,

A colleague of mine had Office 97 and has just been upgraded to Office XP.
However, she created numerous mail merges in 97 which she now needs to gain
access to but when she tries to open one of the documents containg the actual
merged letters that were created in 97 she gets this error message:-

Open this document will run the following SQL COmmand:
Select * From U:\my documents\etc....
Data from your database will be placed in the document, do you want to
continue? Yes No

Regardless of whether she chooses Yes or No, it opens the document but it
only has the first merged letter?

Putting aside any possible misunderstanding about merges, and records, and
such... The message in question has to do with a new security measure. It's
described, along with a way to get rid of it, in the following article. FWIW,
she should always answer "Yes" if she wants the merge document to open with the
data source still linked.

If she's getting the same with "Yes" as with "No", then the link to the data
source has been lost. This could be because the data source is no longer in the
same location as it was before?

"Opening This Will Run the Following SQL Command" Message When You Open a Word
Document - 825765
http://support.microsoft.com?kbid=825765

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or reply
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[Anne Troy]

I'm sorry... a few pieces of information for you:

1. Once a document is merged (66 letters), there should no longer be a
connection to a data source, so I suspect that...
2. You are opening a mail merge main document and not a previously merged
document.
3. SQL is a query language now used by Office (xp and up) to get the
information from the data source. Unfortunately, there's really no
supressing the stupid message.
4. I have no idea why the mail merge toolbar is grayed out.
Are there fields in the document or not?
*******************
~Anne Troy

www.OfficeArticles.com
www.MyExpertsOnline.com

 

[Louise]

Hello

Thank you for the speedy reply. I will check with her to see if the data
source is still in the same location - as she has been given a new PC,
together with the new version of Office - perhaps she has moved it? If it is
in a different location and she moves it back to the original one, will it
work ok??

THanks again.

Louise

 

[Louise]

I have just checked with the user and all the files/folders etc. are in
exactly the same location??

Please help...........!!

Thanks very much.

Louise

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi =?Utf-8?B?TG91aXNl?=,

Thank you for the speedy reply. I will check with her to see if the data
source is still in the same location - as she has been given a new PC,
together with the new version of Office - perhaps she has moved it? If it is
in a different location and she moves it back to the original one, will it
work ok??

I have just checked with the user and all the files/folders etc. are in
exactly the same location??

OK, I'd still have her try to relink the data source in. Word is just SO
finicky about how it checks the data source location against what it has
saved in the document. And, if she ever did answer "No", then save the
document after opening, the data connection is no longer there and she has
to relink.

So

1. She opens the document.

2. If she gets the SQL question (because she hasn't created the Registry
key mentioned in the article I gave), she should answer "Yes". If she does
not, then she will always loose the link.

3. She needs to choose whether she wants to use the mail merge toolbar or
the mail merge wizard. Personally, I prefer the toolbar for most things.
(She can also get the old interface back, instructions for this are in the
Word 2002/2003 section of my website's Mail Merge FAQ)

4. She next needs to link in the data source, that will be the second
button from the left in the toolbar.

5. Now she should be able to perform the merge (to the printer or to a new
document - this is where I'm not sure she's always been doing the "right
thing")

If she still has problems, especially if the data "doesn't look right"
once she's linked in the source, we need to know in which application the
data is stored (Word document, Excel, Access, other...)

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or
reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail

 

[Louise]

Hi

Yes, she opens the document and chooses Yes when prompted. THis then opens
the main document for her. If she brings the mail merge toolbar onto the
screen, all icons are greyed out and therefore cannot be used. IF she uses
the task pane instead, it takes her through every step as if the document she
has open isn't already part of a merge and she has to choose/create data
source etc. It is as if any links that were made during the original mail
merge have disappeared??

I've never seen this before and can't understand why the links seem to have
gone for no reason? As she has quite a few large merges set up, it's
causing her problems.


Thanks.

Louise

 

[Doug Robbins]

How about using the Open Data Source button (second from left on the
mailmerge toolbar? That should be enabled no matter what document is on the
screen (even if it is not a mailmerge main document). If the fields in the
datasource that she opens have the same names as the mergefields in the main
document, then she should then be able to just execute the merge.
--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi =?Utf-8?B?TG91aXNl?=,

Yes, she opens the document and chooses Yes when prompted. THis then opens
the main document for her. If she brings the mail merge toolbar onto the
screen, all icons are greyed out and therefore cannot be used. IF she uses
the task pane instead, it takes her through every step as if the document she
has open isn't already part of a merge and she has to choose/create data
source etc. It is as if any links that were made during the original mail
merge have disappeared??

ALL the buttons on the toolbar can't be grayed out. The first two, at the very
least, ought to be available. And once the data is linked in, the rest will be.

IF she ever tried "No" instead of "Yes", then saved that document, the links
will definitely have been lost. If any VBA program tried to open the merge
documents on her machine, and then saved, they'll be gone.

As a general rule, opening them with "Yes" should not lose the links, but you
still haven't mentioned WHAT the data source is, so it's difficult to offer an
opinion on what the cause might be.

I've never seen this before and can't understand why the links seem to have
gone for no reason? As she has quite a few large merges set up, it's
causing her problems.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or reply
in the newsgroup and not by e-mail

 

[Louise]

Hi Cindy

The data source is also a Word document.

I have opened the main document containing the letter, opened the mail merge
toolbar and clicked onto the second icon which has allowed me to select the
data source I wish to use. This seems to have worked fine and has
'reconnected' the source to the original letter. I just couldn't understand
why the link disappeared in the first place?

We got there in the end........! Thanks very much for all your help.

Louise

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi =?Utf-8?B?TG91aXNl?=,

I have opened the main document containing the letter, opened the mail merge
toolbar and clicked onto the second icon which has allowed me to select the
data source I wish to use. This seems to have worked fine and has
'reconnected' the source to the original letter. I just couldn't understand
why the link disappeared in the first place?

We got there in the end....

OK, thanks for confirming that

WHY (assuming "No" was never clicked and the file path was always available) is
hard to say without having been part of the team that moved / upgraded the
user. Could be a small glitch in the documents' internal file structures (one
that propagated from the template from which they were all created).

It's also possible that Word somehow realized things "weren't the same"
(different machine name or something) and decided it didn't know how to find the
file path.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or reply
in the newsgroup and not by e-mail