Word 07 mailmerge

[Markus]

I have been using an app to run mailmerges forever (mostly in word 2003).
One of my clients recently got Office 2007 with Word 07, and am having a
problem with the oMerge.Opendatasource. I keep getting an -- OLE Dispatch
Exception: Word was unable to open the data source.

I thought it might have to do with the security setting of the logged user,
but had someone log in with admin rights and still the same message.

Anyone know of any changes from 03 to 07 that might prevent me from opening
the data source? Is there some new security setting in 07 that can block OLE
access to setting the ds?

Many thanks for any and all ideas on this,
Mark

 

[Peter Jamieson]

Anyone know of any changes from 03 to 07 that might prevent me from
opening

the data source?

I haven't come across the particular error you mention, but...
a. what exactly is your data source? maybe you could post the code for
your OpenDataSource here?
b. if you are trying to connect to an OLE Db data source via a .udl
file, I have certainly had difficulties in Word 2007 that I did not in
Word 2003. .odc files still seem OK.
c. if your data source is a .xlsx/.xlsm but you are trying to connect
using the Jet provider rather than the Office 2007 ACE provider, you may
well have problems - probably also if you are trying to connect with an
..accdb rather than a .mdb



Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

 

[Markus]

Peter,

Here's the curious thing - my client uninstalled office 2007 and reinstalled
office 2003. On some machines, the problem was still there. On others, the
problem was gone after 2003 was reinstalled. The difference in the machines
was on the ones the reinstall of 2003 did not solve the problem, Word 2007
was actually used. On the others where reinstalling 2003 worked to solve the
problem, Word was never used before it was removed and 2003 was put back on.

Hope that clue will suggest what may be going on to someone here.

The datasource is a dbf, and I checked to be sure they had odbc drivers
installed in Word07 to read dbf files, so that should not be a problem.

You mentioned Jet vs. ACE provider, are there options that could be set in
Word 07 as to how a merge datasource should be read that might affect using
dbf files?

Hope you have some ideas.
Thanks,
Mark

 

[Peter Jamieson]

I definitely do not have enough info. to point to a specific problem
here, but let's step through a few areas you could look at:
a. There's a FoxPro driver/provider (ODBC and OLE DB respectively)
which is typically used to read newer FoxPro .dbfs, and is also needed
if you want to access FoxPro data via a .dbc
b. There's a Jet driver/provider, that can read older ("dBASE") .dbfs
using a dBASE IISAM. Off the top of my head, I couldn't tell you whether
the ACE provider still has that support.
c. The only thing that the "on machines where Word 2007 was used,
reinstalling Word 2003 didn't fix the problem" scenario suggests to me
is that if the relevant driver/provider was marked as "install on first
use" in Office setup, a configuration change that might not be reversed
on reinstallation of Office 2003. However, right now I couldn't tell you
if that "install on first use" option is still there in Office 2007
setup, or which specific thing Word might install that would cause the
problem.

One of the things I would look at is how the connection is being made -
if a Word document was set up with a valid connection, and the
connection method used to make that connection is no longer valid or
some component has been removed, then I can imagine the sort of error
you mention occuring when the document was opened. If, however, you are
going through the connection process again manually then I suppose I
would hope for a slightly more obvious sign as to what is missing.

I don't suppose that will get you anywhere but it's all I can think of
right now.


Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

 

[Markus]

Peter,

Appreciate the ideas. I was able to determine that there are odbc for
Excel, Access, and Dbase is installed. The datasource is a dbf, and in 2003
it used odbc for Dbase. I will explore this more.

I like your last point. The templates for merges were setup in 2003. I'll
try going thru the setup in 2007 and see if I can get a better error message
to see what's up.

Thanks again,
Mark