failed ODBC during merge

[Steve Thompson]

We have a product which is ODBC (standards) compatible.
In prior versions of Office (97, 2000, etc) we are able
to access external data from all of the Office apps
(Word, Excel, & Access) directly. Specifically, we can
create a mail-merged document directly in Word and
connect to our data-source directly to complete the
document.

In Office 2002, this still works as expected in both
Access and Excel, but in Word the 'data source' is no
longer listed the same way, and if you try to connect to
it an error is generated asking for field delimiters, as
though it no longer recognizes the data dictionary.

As a work-around, we can first bring the data into either
Excel or Access, but this wasn't necessary in prior
versions.

Is this an expected result because of changes made to
Word 2002, or am I overlooking something in setup or
configuration?

Thanks in advance for any advice!

 

[Peter Jamieson]

I don't know how exactly you connected before, but..

If your ODBC data source has an associated file (e.g. when you are
connecting to Access via ODBC, you are still connecting to a .mdb file,
whereas with SQL Server you are connecting to a network service), then what
you probably need to do in Word 2002 is check Word
Tools|Options|General|"Confirm conversions at open", which is the equivalent
of the old "Select method" as far as opening data sources is concerned. Then
go through your data source selection process again and you should see the
same additional dialog box as before. You may need to check the Show All box
to see your ODBC DSN.

Alternatively, as long as MS Query is installed on your system you can
connect to an ODBC data source with a DSN using the Tools|MS Query optoin in
the top right of the Select Data Source dialog box.

There are other possible ways to connect to these sources in Word 2002 and
later - e.g. if you also have an OLEDB provider, you may be able to use
that.