wrong record in mail merge

[john thompson]

This is probably an easy problem, but I'm attempting to
mail merge a single record from an access database, and the
record that is merged is always different from the record i
choose in the 'merge records from x to x' fields.

Any ideas what could cause this? Does word re-sort the
database when you create the data source?

 

[Peter Jamieson]

I don't know /exactly/ what Word does, but the thing to bear in mind is that
relational databases, including Access, do not guarantee that records are
retrieved in any particular sequence. Retrieval is on the basis of content
(e.g. field "A is 123" rather than "position"). If you want to ensure a
particular sequence, specify a sequence in Word, or (probably a better
approach if it is available to you) create an Access query that specifies a
sequence.

An alternative in Word, especially when you only want one record, would be
to specify a filter that selects that record on the basis of its content
rather than its location, (e.g. by saying that field A is equal to 123).
Precisely how you do that depends on your version of Word.

 

[john]

thanks, that was what i need to know

-----Original Message-----
I don't know /exactly/ what Word does, but the thing to bear in mind is that
relational databases, including Access, do not guarantee that records are
retrieved in any particular sequence. Retrieval is on the basis of content
(e.g. field "A is 123" rather than "position"). If you want to ensure a
particular sequence, specify a sequence in Word, or (probably a better
approach if it is available to you) create an Access query that specifies a
sequence.

An alternative in Word, especially when you only want one record, would be
to specify a filter that selects that record on the basis of its content
rather than its location, (e.g. by saying that field A is equal to 123).
Precisely how you do that depends on your version of Word.

--
Peter Jamieson
MS Word MVP




.