Word2000 mailmerge message

[Harry Broekhof]

Hi all,

Daily we merge hondreds of letters to our customers (a set of 30 Word2000
documemts). Every day we get (with random documents in the set) a message
window that has a caption: "Scheidingstekens voor veldnamenrecord". Word
does not recognizes the fileformat of the datafile. The datafile is being
generated by a database routine for "all" the letters.

Word proposes a file format (TAB separated) and this is "always" the correct
format and the operators hit the "enterkey" when that happens. This message
is getting on there nerves after doing this for quit some time now

Does annyone knows how to suppress that message?

With regards,

Harry Broekhof

p.s. we use Windows2000 in a large network and Word2000 for merging.

 

[Peter Jamieson]

"Scheidingstekens voor veldnamenrecord"

I would translate this literally as "delimiter characters in the field name
record"

1. Do you have a separate "header data source" that just contains
field/column names?

2. Does your data source contain numbers?

3. If it does, do the numbers use "," for the decimal point, e.g. "11,01",
or do they use ".", e.g. "11.01" ?

 

[Harry Broekhof]

Hi Peter,

1. No, the fields are in the datafile itself (the field separator is: Tab
and the record separator is return);

2. Yes, the datasource uses numbers (the price field)

3. The decimal separator is the comma e.g. 0,00

The pricefield always has a valleu.

With regards,

Harry

 

[Peter Jamieson]

1. Can you try changing those commas to periods (, -> . )

(My theory is that Word may be having difficulty deciding which is the field
delimiter character because "," and <tab> are both candidates, and in this
case I am not sure that your Regional Settings will make any difference.

2. If possible, can you also open your Mail Merge Main Document when the
data source is open, start the VBA Editor, enter the following commands in
the immediate window, and post the results here?

print activedocument.mailmerge.datasource.name
print activedocument.mailmerge.datasource.connectstring
print activedocument.mailmerge.datasource.querystring

 

[Window nummers (word2000)]

1.
Changed de commas into points: same result.
Changed the commas into #: same result.

2.
a.
print activedocument.mailmerge.datasource.name
\\Hdc.local\dfs\ABO-Prod-Files\Brieven\NAZ_GE\07241050.DOC

b.
print activedocument.mailmerge.datasource.connectstring
- nothing happens
- the merge program opens the datasource, does the mailmerge and closes the
databaseconnection all be itself. When give the command the
databaseconnection is already lost.

c.
print activedocument.mailmerge.datasource.querystring
SELECT * FROM \\Hdc.local\dfs\ABO-Prod-Files\Brieven\NAZ_GE\07241050.DOC

I wish I could give you the datasource but the data holds private
information from our customers, I hope you understand.

Harry Broekhof

 

[Peter Jamieson]

I wish I could give you the datasource but the data holds private

information from our customers, I hope you understand.

Yes, but it does make diagnosis harder. Mostly, all I can do is ask
questions based on what I have encountered in the past.

Are these .doc files that you are using as data sources actually Word .doc
files or some other format (plain text?) with a .doc extension?

When you have a problem with a particular data source file, if you are able
to save the data source and peform the connection manually, do you always
have the same problem? If not, there could be a problem to do with file
locking or availability. I have encountered problems in the past with data
sources stored on DFS fiel systems.

Are these .doc files actually Word format .doc files, or (e.g.) plain text
files with the extension .doc? (If the files are generated automatically,
what format options are available, if you had to change to solve the
problem?)

Do the data sources that "fail" have any of the following characteristics
when compared with the ones that do not fail:
a. a lot more columns or rows
b. some, or more, accented characters in the data rows or header row
c. some, or more, text delimiter character (typically double-quote here in
the U.K.), or multiple double-quote characters
d. multi-line data?

 

[Window nummers (word2000)]

The doc's have the "doc" extension but are in fact NOT Word-documents, you
are right there the files are being generated by the same sql-routine's,
that is also why I can't grasp what the differents can be. Also our
programmers with made the routines know what the trigger is.

This week I will ask if, in this case, I can send you such a file. I think I
will get a YES on that question. Is there an adress to where I can send such
a file? My businessadress is: (e-mail address removed)