Hello Rachael,

OK, we're in danger of talking at cross-purposes here, so for the moment I'm
not going to try to answer all your questions and points.

Can you please try to do the following:
a. open one of the documents (.doc) that is connected to your data source.
Assuming it has lost its data source in the way you have described,
reconnect it to the data source. But don't save it, and don't do a merge.
b. Click File|Save As, and use the "Save as Type" drop-down list at the
bottom of the dialog box to select the file type "Web Page (*.htm, *.html).
The type a name such as myfile.htm in the File Name box. Notice where Word
is saving this file, and click Save.
c. Go into Word Tools|Options|General and check "Confirm conversions at
open".
d. re-open myfile.htm (e.g. from the list of recently opened files in the
Word FIle menu. You should see a dialog box titled "Convert file". Select
"Plain Text" and click OK.
e. you should now see the "source code" of your document in HTML format. It
won't look anything like your actual document, but will probably start

html xmlns="urn..."

Look down the document about 30 lines or so and you should see lines that
show various pieces of information about the mail merge data source, e.g.
the lines starting

w:MailMergeMainDocType
w:MailMergeQueryString

etc. Can you please tell us what the few lines after

w:MailMergeQueryString

and

w:MailMergeDataSource

say?

And/or cut and paste these lines in a message and post them here.

I am expecting the MailMergeQueryString to look something like

SELECT * FROM the full path name of your data source document

and the MailMergeDataSource to look lke

HRef="the full path name of your data source"

If there is a problem with the path name being too long, you may see that
the name is truncated in one or the other of those texts. If neither is
truncated, thepath name length probably isn't the problem.

Finally,

In terms of the template, I didn't create the template,
it's government. And it always needs to be attached to
the datasource. I work under a strict government
legislation which legislates which information has to be
on which form and we are not allowed to change it
(unfortunately). As well, because of the nature of the
job, I have to send out these government forms with every
piece of mail I send. I even have a legislation that
tells me what items HAVE to be on my fax covers (there's
a list of about 20 items) (and we actually get in trouble
if information is missing!!)

OK, it's clear that if you have to use a specific predefined template then
if there is a problem with the template then it may be impossible to solve
unless someone is allowed to change it. But I get the impression from what
you have said that you are allowed to change some aspects of a template. For
example, if the template is connected to a data source, it will be connected
to a specific file in a specific location in your folders. But if you have a
typical WIndows configuration where your documents are stored in My
Documents, the full path name of /your/ "My Documents" folder will almost
certainly contain some form of logon or user name. Since that name will be
different for each user, each user's copy of the template would either have
to be a bit different, or would (probably) have to have a macro that would
work out the full path name of the data source.

Peter Jamieson