Word XP cannot establish DDE Link

[Bill Painter]

I have a large number of Word merge documents that merge data from Excel
spreadsheets and have used them successfully for years with various versions
of Windows and Office. For the past 9 months I have been using Office XP
and Windows XP Pro with no problems. Last week I moved my merge files to a
new computer with Win XP Pro and Office XP. I should also mention that I am
using DDE connections to maintain formatting.

On the new computer every time I try to open a merge document in Word that
looks for data in Excel I get a message in the status bar of Word that says
"Waiting for Microsoft Excel to Accept DDE commands". Excel opens, but
nothing happens and it never opens the data file. I made sure the "Ignore
Other Applications" in Excel is unchecked. I tried this on a number of
merge documents, each of which uses a different Excel database and always
get the same results. I tried sharing the folders the documents are in and
running the merge from Word on my old computer and things went fine so the
files are not corrupted.

Finally, I tried creating a new merge document in Word using DDE with an
existing Excel database. I received the following message in the Word
status bar: "Initiating DDE link with Microsoft Excel" and things halted at
that point. Again, Excel started, but the data file never opened.

I did a detect and repain of office but the results afterward were the
same - frustrating.

Can anyone offer any further suggestions? Should I uninstall and reinstall
office? One further bit of information - I used the save my settings wizard
to move settings from my old computer to the new one and then checked them
manually.

Thank you in advance for any assistance you can provide.

Bill Painter

 

[Peter Jamieson]

Can anyone offer any further suggestions?

Not really, but things I would try if you haven't already are:
a. open Excel and the data source document before opening your Mail Merge
main document, particularly if you have never actually started Excel on your
new machine except from a Word mailmerge (some programs can get stuck
because they need to be run once to set up all the correct registry entries,
or want to display a dialog box on first use, or have addins that need to
run once, etc.)
b. open Excel, open a blank Word document, then try inserting the following
DDE field and executing it:

{ DDE Excel System Topics }

Here, for example, the result is

[:]: [PDFMaker.xla]Sheet1 System

which indicates that there is an addin on my system.

If you can't get that far, I'd suggest that the DDE mechanism is basically
not working, at least with Word as a DDE client and Excel as a DDE server.
(This would be strange as a lot of things in e.g. Windows Explorer still
rely on DDE to some extent). If you can, I think I would then go just one
more step and open a .xls in Excel, refresh the Word field, and you should
see at least one new Topic, e.g.

[yourworkbookname.xls]Sheet1

I'd then try

{ DDE Excel [yourworkbookname.xls]Sheet1 R1C1 }

and see if the DDE field returned the data in the first cell in the
spreadsheet.

If that all works, it might be worth trying opening your merge document
again. And if not...

This question pops up from time to time and I can't see any sign that anyone
has ever really got to the bottom of this particular version of it, so if
nothing turns up I'll fire off a query to MS and see what happens.

 

[Bill Painter]

Peter,

Thank you for your response. I had tried opening the data file in Excel and
then opening the merge document in Word once before with no success. At
your suggestion, however, I tried it again this morning. Things locked up
in Word again so I decided to reboot. I then tried a different merge
document and data file on the same machine and things worked! Then I went
back to the troublesome ones and they worked. I am not sure what changed,
but I am pleased with the results. Thank you again for your suggestions and
encouragement.

Bill Painter

Can anyone offer any further suggestions?

Not really, but things I would try if you haven't already are:
a. open Excel and the data source document before opening your Mail Merge
main document, particularly if you have never actually started Excel on your
new machine except from a Word mailmerge (some programs can get stuck
because they need to be run once to set up all the correct registry entries,
or want to display a dialog box on first use, or have addins that need to
run once, etc.)
b. open Excel, open a blank Word document, then try inserting the following
DDE field and executing it:

{ DDE Excel System Topics }

Here, for example, the result is

[:]: [PDFMaker.xla]Sheet1 System

which indicates that there is an addin on my system.

If you can't get that far, I'd suggest that the DDE mechanism is basically
not working, at least with Word as a DDE client and Excel as a DDE server.
(This would be strange as a lot of things in e.g. Windows Explorer still
rely on DDE to some extent). If you can, I think I would then go just one
more step and open a .xls in Excel, refresh the Word field, and you should
see at least one new Topic, e.g.

[yourworkbookname.xls]Sheet1

I'd then try

{ DDE Excel [yourworkbookname.xls]Sheet1 R1C1 }

and see if the DDE field returned the data in the first cell in the
spreadsheet.

If that all works, it might be worth trying opening your merge document
again. And if not...

This question pops up from time to time and I can't see any sign that anyone
has ever really got to the bottom of this particular version of it, so if
nothing turns up I'll fire off a query to MS and see what happens.


--
Peter Jamieson
MS Word MVP

I have a large number of Word merge documents that merge data from Excel
spreadsheets and have used them successfully for years with various versions
of Windows and Office. For the past 9 months I have been using Office XP
and Windows XP Pro with no problems. Last week I moved my merge files

to

a
new computer with Win XP Pro and Office XP. I should also mention that

I

am
using DDE connections to maintain formatting.

On the new computer every time I try to open a merge document in Word that
looks for data in Excel I get a message in the status bar of Word that says
"Waiting for Microsoft Excel to Accept DDE commands". Excel opens, but
nothing happens and it never opens the data file. I made sure the "Ignore
Other Applications" in Excel is unchecked. I tried this on a number of
merge documents, each of which uses a different Excel database and always
get the same results. I tried sharing the folders the documents are in and
running the merge from Word on my old computer and things went fine so the
files are not corrupted.

Finally, I tried creating a new merge document in Word using DDE with an
existing Excel database. I received the following message in the Word
status bar: "Initiating DDE link with Microsoft Excel" and things halted at
that point. Again, Excel started, but the data file never opened.

I did a detect and repain of office but the results afterward were the
same - frustrating.

Can anyone offer any further suggestions? Should I uninstall and reinstall
office? One further bit of information - I used the save my settings wizard
to move settings from my old computer to the new one and then checked them
manually.

Thank you in advance for any assistance you can provide.

Bill Painter