Word 04 Mail Merge Error

[Claudia]

Have a postcard merging with an excel file of names and addresses.

Getting an error in record 1113 and forward. And the main document is
hinkied up after I command+. out of the merge.

This is a merge I have done over 500 times, and never seen this happen
before.

The postcard is a template created 4 months ago, that merged flawlessly.

The data file is new. There are no blanks in the lookup / merge fields. No
merge commands invoked.

She who has taught mail merge is stymied. Some kind soul please correct the
error of my ways.

Claudia
MB 2.4 GHz Core2Duo
2 GB RAM
250G HD
OSX 10.5.4

Office 04 11.4
1st gen iPhone 8G

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Claudia;

One of the first things I noticed is that your OS X is short the latest
update (10.5.5 is current) but your version of Office is more than a full
step out of date - 11.5.1 is what it should be & 11.5.2 was just released.
Have you checked to make certain that your printer driver is up to date? I'd
suggest that you first get everything up to date, repair permissions & see
if that changes anything. If not, we need more information...

Are you merging to a file or directly to a printer - or does the same error
occur regardless? Does the error occur in the same place [record 1113] every
time? Have you tried doing a merge to a different document as a test - maybe
just a standard label, such as Avery 5160 - using the same record source?

What is the actual error? Is there some sort of message? If so, what does it
contain? If not please describe how the error manifests itself. Also,
clarification of your term "hinkied up" would be quite helpful - obviously
it isn't a good thing but I've no idea what it's intended to convey

Based on your post I am assuming the problem lies most likely with the new
data source, so it would also be useful to know what type of data source it
is - Excel file, Word table, text file... Specifics provided by you are the
only means we have of "seeing" what's going on.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[Claudia]

Hi Claudia;

One of the first things I noticed is that your OS X is short the latest
update (10.5.5 is current) but your version of Office is more than a full
step out of date - 11.5.1 is what it should be & 11.5.2 was just released.
Have you checked to make certain that your printer driver is up to date? I'd
suggest that you first get everything up to date, repair permissions & see
if that changes anything. If not, we need more information...

Are you merging to a file or directly to a printer - or does the same error
occur regardless? Does the error occur in the same place [record 1113] every
time? Have you tried doing a merge to a different document as a test - maybe
just a standard label, such as Avery 5160 - using the same record source?

What is the actual error? Is there some sort of message? If so, what does it
contain? If not please describe how the error manifests itself. Also,
clarification of your term "hinkied up" would be quite helpful - obviously
it isn't a good thing but I've no idea what it's intended to convey

Based on your post I am assuming the problem lies most likely with the new
data source, so it would also be useful to know what type of data source it
is - Excel file, Word table, text file... Specifics provided by you are the
only means we have of "seeing" what's going on.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

Hadn't installed the latest Office update because of Entourage reported
"issues". But the merges have been working fine - till this one. Didn't
think of the OSX update as affecting Word/Excel. Merging to new document,
not printer.

The error is causing Word to semi-crash - all menus are greyed out.

Will try update, repair permissions and try a label. This is so automatic to
me, that the hiccup really has thrown me for a loop.

Thanks,
Claudia

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Claudia;

One of the first things I noticed is that your OS X is short the latest
update (10.5.5 is current) but your version of Office is more than a full
step out of date - 11.5.1 is what it should be & 11.5.2 was just released.
Have you checked to make certain that your printer driver is up to date? I'd
suggest that you first get everything up to date, repair permissions & see
if that changes anything. If not, we need more information...

Are you merging to a file or directly to a printer - or does the same error
occur regardless? Does the error occur in the same place [record 1113] every
time? Have you tried doing a merge to a different document as a test - maybe
just a standard label, such as Avery 5160 - using the same record source?

What is the actual error? Is there some sort of message? If so, what does it
contain? If not please describe how the error manifests itself. Also,
clarification of your term "hinkied up" would be quite helpful - obviously
it isn't a good thing but I've no idea what it's intended to convey

Based on your post I am assuming the problem lies most likely with the new
data source, so it would also be useful to know what type of data source it
is - Excel file, Word table, text file... Specifics provided by you are the
only means we have of "seeing" what's going on.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

Hadn't installed the latest Office update because of Entourage reported
"issues". But the merges have been working fine - till this one. Didn't
think of the OSX update as affecting Word/Excel. Merging to new document,
not printer.

The error is causing Word to semi-crash - all menus are greyed out.

Will try update, repair permissions and try a label. This is so automatic to
me, that the hiccup really has thrown me for a loop.

Thanks,
Claudia

Hello again;

I believe the Entourage matters that existed in the 11.4.x series were
obviated in the 11.5.0 Service Pack. As for the OS X update I highly
recommend using the Combo updates from Apple Downloads rather than the
"abbreviated" versions retrieved by Software Update. I've gotten to the
point where the updates to iTunes, QT, Security, etc. I'll run when prompted
by SU, but I always decline the OS updates in favor of manually fetching the
Combo version: http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/

All that said, if the merge is hanging at the same spot every time I'm still
suspicious of the data file... There's most likely something about the
specific record that is causing the misfire. If I understand your post it
would be different if the merge blew up after 10-15 records, but if it's
handling over 1,000 *then* collapsing it pretty much points to the
record/row where the error is happening - perhaps not that specific record
but one further on. Another test would be (if it's an Excel file) copy the
range of data then do a Paste Special - Values to a new sheet & try the
merge with that copy of the records.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac