Mail Merge Data Question

[Tom Bean]

I have a mail merge document that has never been linked to a data source but
shows data when Alt-F9 is pressed to hide the merge fields. The data shown
is from a data source, an Excel workbook, that was linked to another mail
merge document but the Excel workbook has been deleted.

My question is: Where is Word getting the data to merge into the document?

Thanks,
Tom

 

[Peter Jamieson]

1. Open the VB editor, type the following in the Immediate window

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

(If you're using Word 2002 unfortunately some of those commands may fail).

Do the results give you any clues? If not, what are the results?

Peter Jamieson

 

[Tom Bean]

Peter,

The commands did not return anything. Since the datasource doesn't exist,
could it be a SQL command in some other object?

When I open the document, a message box pops up with the following message:
"Opening this document will run the following SQL command:
SELECT * FROM 'Sheet1$'
Data from your database will be placed in the document. Do you want to
continure?"

Do you have any suggestions about what else I could check?

Thanks,
Tom

 

[Peter Jamieson]

When I open the document, a message box pops up with the following

message:
"Opening this document will run the following SQL command:
SELECT * FROM 'Sheet1$'
Data from your database will be placed in the document. Do you want to
continure?"

Certainly that suggests that Word thinks the document is linked to a
datasource. If you say "no" and choose the option to get rid of the mail
merge connection (the fields will be left in the document), then close and
re-open the document, what happens?

Does the document have any macros in it, or is it linked to a template with
an AutoOpen macro?

PEter Jamieson

 

[Tom Bean]

Peter,

I did something that used to fix documents several versions ago, i.e.
selected the whole document except the last paragraph mark, copied it and
pasted it into a new document. After doing that, the new document opens
without displaying the message box but hitting Alt-F9 still populates the
document with that data from the deleted spreadsheet.

I checked the macros and the document doesn't have any. I'm not really sure
how to check if the document is linked to a template but I created the new
document by clicking the 'New Blank Document' button not by creating it from
a template.

One additional thing I didn't mention, I copied the document to a share
drive and opened it on another system and the data from the deleted
spreadsheet still gets merged into the document.

Tom

 

[Peter Jamieson]

I checked the macros and the document doesn't have any. I'm not really

sure how to check if the document is linked to a template but I created
the new document by clicking the 'New Blank Document' button not by
creating it from a template.

You can find out what template a document is linked to using Tools|Templates
and Add-ins. A document is always linked to a template, but when you click
the new blank document it's linked to the default template, normal.dot.

Further possibilities:
a. select the fields, press F9. Do they still display the field "results",
or <<fieldname>> etc. ?
b. normal.dot could be linked to a data source. In that case, any "New
Blank Document" would be linked to that data source. If that is the case,
you need to find normal.dot (typically on a WIndows XP system it is in the
following folder, where you substitute your user name for <your username>

C:\Documents and Settings\<your username>\Application
Data\Microsoft\Templates

Then open it, enable the mailmerge toolbar, click the first button, select
"Normal Word Document", disable the mailmerge toolbar, save and close
normal.dot. Or, if you do not have macros, autotexts, keyboard assignments
etc. stored in normal.dot, just rename normal.dot and let Word create a new
one.
c. create a new normal.dot as in (b), then recreate your document from
scratch (don't copy/paste).
d. I have one other idea but it's so unlikely that it's probably better not
to go there right now...

Peter Jamieson

 

[Tom Bean]

Peter,

The only template that is listed in Tools|Templates and Add-ins is
normal.dot. There was a 'Hyperlink' listed on the Styles tab in the
Organizer but I deleted it and the data still showed up.

When I select a field and press F9, it shows the { MERGEFIELD "Name" }. In
other words, it doesn't change.

I renamed normal.dot and Word created a new one, however, it didn't make any
difference either.

I started a new document and it switches between { MERGEFIELD "Name" } and
<<Name>> when I hit F9. I didn't open a data file to get my field names
because I was afraid I would recreate the same problem I have now. It looks
like this is a solution but since I have over 50 fields in the document, it
will take some time to recreate it from scratch.

Thanks,
Tom

 

[Peter Jamieson]

When I select a field and press F9, it shows the { MERGEFIELD "Name" }.

In other words, it doesn't change.

If the field code is showing, you would also have to use Alt-F9 to show the
"result": if you see the data, then updating the fields hasn't made any
difference. if you see <<Name>>, it should be OK.

Peter Jamieson