Waiting for Microsoft Excel to accept DDE Commands

[Ohmes]

Mail merge hangs on opening source document (Named range in Exce
Spreadsheet)

Status bar displays the following messagaes....
Opening Source Document
Starting Excel
Waiting for Microsoft Excel to accept DDE Commands
Opening Data File
Requesting Query information from Microsoft Excel

When the system hangs, it does so during the third step - Waiting for
Microsoft Excel to accept DDE Commands. The dark blue bar at the top o
the
screen turns into a faded blue bar. .

I have tried many things but nothing has worked so far.

Any suggestons? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi Ohmes,

Which version of Office are we dealing with, here?

The first things I'd check if this turns up is

1. Is "ignore other applications" activated in Excel's
Tools/Options/General?

2. Is Excel displaying a dialog box, and waiting for the user to dismiss
it?

Mail merge hangs on opening source document (Named range in Excel
Spreadsheet)

Status bar displays the following messagaes....
Opening Source Document
Starting Excel
Waiting for Microsoft Excel to accept DDE Commands
Opening Data File
Requesting Query information from Microsoft Excel

When the system hangs, it does so during the third step - Waiting for
Microsoft Excel to accept DDE Commands. The dark blue bar at the top of
the
screen turns into a faded blue bar. .

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

 

[Ohmes]

Thanks

Using Office 2000.

& .... No the "ignore other applications" box is not ticke

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi Ohmes,

Using Office 2000.

& .... No the "ignore other applications" box is not ticked

And you're certain that, when this happens, there's no dialog box displayed
in Excel, waiting for you to take action?

Since the behavior isn't regular, it's difficult to trouble-shoot, which is
why I'd suspect a dialog box, or something IN the Excel environment.

There are alternative connection methods to bring in data from Excel, the
only problem is, using them won't bring across date or numeric formats.
This means you'd need to specify the formats in the Word merge fields.
You'll find information on how to do that in the MailMerge FAQ on my
website.

In order to get Word to let you select the data connection method, activate
"Select method" in the Open datasource dialog box.

The first things I'd check if this turns up is

1. Is "ignore other applications" activated in Excel's
Tools/Options/General?

2. Is Excel displaying a dialog box, and waiting for the user to dismiss
it?

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

 

[Ohmes]

Thanks Cindy.

The only issue is that the excel file is a shared file and it seems a
though using ODBC prevents others from accessing the Excel file!

DDE allows this.

I have heard of others having the same problem. Wonder if Microsof
have got a solution to the DDE problem.

Thanks again

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi Ohmes,

The only issue is that the excel file is a shared file and it seems as
though using ODBC prevents others from accessing the Excel file!

You could try using Word's spreadsheet converter, instead. Since that
makes a copy of the file, in memory, I'd think the original file would
be released...

DDE allows this.

I have heard of others having the same problem. Wonder if Microsoft
have got a solution to the DDE problem.

The DDE problem most people have is that Word "cannot re-establish the
connection". And it's usually not intermittant, but constant. Yours is
something else...

About Microsoft doing something about it: I doubt it. DDE is old
technology and works less and less reliably on each newer version of
Windows. But, hey, one can tell them On the microsoft.com site
there's a portal to the newsgroups (requires you to "log on" using
Passport). There you can post a SUGGESTION that they should put more
support into making sure DDE as a connection method for mail merge works
more reliably. I'm sure you'd get a number of votes supporting it

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

 

[Ohmes]

Thanks Cindy