Mail merge source document hangs on opening

This problem started when we switched from our old computers running Office
97 and Windows 95 to our new Dell computers that run Office XP and Windows XP
(SP2).

The only times that this problem doesn't occur is after a reboot. It will
work for a while and then hang again. When everything works like it should,
the following messages appear:

Opening Source Document
Starting Excel
Waiting for Microsoft Excel to accept DDE Commands
Opening Data File
Requesting Query information from Microsoft Excel

When the system hangs, it does so during the third step - Waiting for
Microsoft Excel to accept DDE Commands. The dark blue bar at the top of the
screen turns into a faded blue bar. After rebooting the computer, if I want
to open the source document again, I get the following message: "The
document xxxx.doc caused a serious error the last time it was opened. Would
you like to continue opening it?" When I select "Yes", the file opens as it
should've in the first place and is ready to merge.

I have tried many things (including playing with the video settings), but
nothing has worked so far.

Any suggestons? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Nolan

Hi =?Utf-8?B?Tm9sYW4=?=,

Hmmm, hard to say. Can you tell if the problem is more frequent when lots of
applications are open and running? Or if you've been using Word and/or Excel for
an extended period of time? Right off hand, I'd say it's not a Word problem, per
se, but a problem with something in Windows communicating per DDE.

Note that with Excel you'd have a choice of three additional connection methods
that certainly wouldn't cause this problem. You might try connecting a couple of
the main merge documents using ODBC and see if that's more stable for you.

Activate "Confirm conversions on open" in Tools/Options/General, then re-connect
to the Excel worksheet. Select ODBC from the list of connections methods that
will be displayed. If you're currently selecting "just a worksheet" (as opposed
to a named range), then you'll need to click "Options" and activate the
checkboxes that appear in order to include worksheets in the listing.

This problem started when we switched from our old computers running Office
97 and Windows 95 to our new Dell computers that run Office XP and Windows XP
(SP2).

The only times that this problem doesn't occur is after a reboot. It will
work for a while and then hang again. When everything works like it should,
the following messages appear:

Opening Source Document
Starting Excel
Waiting for Microsoft Excel to accept DDE Commands
Opening Data File
Requesting Query information from Microsoft Excel

When the system hangs, it does so during the third step - Waiting for
Microsoft Excel to accept DDE Commands. The dark blue bar at the top of the
screen turns into a faded blue bar. After rebooting the computer, if I want
to open the source document again, I get the following message: "The
document xxxx.doc caused a serious error the last time it was opened. Would
you like to continue opening it?" When I select "Yes", the file opens as it
should've in the first place and is ready to merge.

I have tried many things (including playing with the video settings), but
nothing has worked so far.

Any suggestons?


Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or reply
in the newsgroup and not by e-mail :-)

Cindy - thanks for your response. I think that you may be onto something.
When I made the change, the Word document opened much faster. This has led
to a new problem however. Once I have disconnected from the data file and
reconnected, the merged document has lost all of the formating that was in
the document originally. For example, the dates are in scientifc notation
and the numbers don't read like 100,000 they read 100000. This is another
thing that I noticed when we changed to Office XP - it wasn't very easy to
change the location of the data file. This data file has over 200 columns of
data. The merged document is 35 pages of text and numbers and it would be
extremely tedious to go through and have to reformat this document. Is there
a way to change the data source file and not lose the formating?
Interestingly, the formating is correct in the excel file.

Thanks for your help.
Nolan

"Cindy M -WordMVP-" wrote:

Hi =?Utf-8?B?Tm9sYW4=?=,

Hmmm, hard to say. Can you tell if the problem is more frequent when lots of
applications are open and running? Or if you've been using Word and/or Excel for
an extended period of time? Right off hand, I'd say it's not a Word problem, per
se, but a problem with something in Windows communicating per DDE.

Note that with Excel you'd have a choice of three additional connection methods
that certainly wouldn't cause this problem. You might try connecting a couple of
the main merge documents using ODBC and see if that's more stable for you.

Activate "Confirm conversions on open" in Tools/Options/General, then re-connect
to the Excel worksheet. Select ODBC from the list of connections methods that
will be displayed. If you're currently selecting "just a worksheet" (as opposed
to a named range), then you'll need to click "Options" and activate the
checkboxes that appear in order to include worksheets in the listing.

This problem started when we switched from our old computers running Office
97 and Windows 95 to our new Dell computers that run Office XP and Windows XP
(SP2).

The only times that this problem doesn't occur is after a reboot. It will
work for a while and then hang again. When everything works like it should,
the following messages appear:

Opening Source Document
Starting Excel
Waiting for Microsoft Excel to accept DDE Commands
Opening Data File
Requesting Query information from Microsoft Excel

When the system hangs, it does so during the third step - Waiting for
Microsoft Excel to accept DDE Commands. The dark blue bar at the top of the
screen turns into a faded blue bar. After rebooting the computer, if I want
to open the source document again, I get the following message: "The
document xxxx.doc caused a serious error the last time it was opened. Would
you like to continue opening it?" When I select "Yes", the file opens as it
should've in the first place and is ready to merge.

I have tried many things (including playing with the video settings), but
nothing has worked so far.

Any suggestons?


Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or reply
in the newsgroup and not by e-mail :-)

Hi Nolan,

Sorry about getting back to you so late. I was away for a couple of weeks during
the holidays, and have been running to catch up ever since...

What you're seeing now is due to no longer connecting via DDE. Only DDE brings
across formatting from the data source, because it carries on a conversation
with Excel, rather than just bringing across the data. This means, if you use
ODBC (or OLEDB), you must place the formatting information in the mail merge
fields in Word (prior to the merge). Alt+F9 toggles the field codes on/off. A
formatting switch would look something like this
{ Mergefield Total \# "0.00" }

I think that you may be onto something.
When I made the change, the Word document opened much faster. This has led
to a new problem however. Once I have disconnected from the data file and
reconnected, the merged document has lost all of the formating that was in
the document originally. For example, the dates are in scientifc notation
and the numbers don't read like 100,000 they read 100000. This is another
thing that I noticed when we changed to Office XP - it wasn't very easy to
change the location of the data file. This data file has over 200 columns of
data. The merged document is 35 pages of text and numbers and it would be
extremely tedious to go through and have to reformat this document. Is there
a way to change the data source file and not lose the formating?
Interestingly, the formating is correct in the excel file.


Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or reply
in the newsgroup and not by e-mail :-)