Word could not re-establish a DDE Connection

[Akron]

We had no problems with this at all in Word 2003, but since moving to Word
2007 last week, when doing a mail merge, I'm receiving the error message
about Word not being able to re-establish a DDE connection. Just as we did
in Word 2003, we selected in the Word options to "confirm file format
conversion on open". Then when we select the Excel file for the merge, we
select "MS Excel Worksheets via DDE". At this point, we're getting the error
message.

We discovered that if we put a copy of the Excel file on our desktop, it
will open the file and do the merge just fine. But, if we try to go to
shared folders to retrieve the Excel file, the error message comes up. As I
mentioned, this error did not occur in Word 2003 - this is new to us in 2007.

 

[Peter Jamieson]

If you open Excel, then open your data source from the shared file, do you
encounter any security messages (or any other kind of "blocking" message).
If so, you need to get rid of that, because when you open via DDE, Word
tries to open Excel if it is not already open, then Excel tries to open the
data source, if it is not already open.

One thing you /may/ need to do is go into Excel Office Button->Excel
Options->Trust Center->Trust Center Settings->Trusted Locations and add your
shared folder to the list.