Thread: Mailmerge Setup
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Peter Jamieson Peter Jamieson is offline
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Default Mailmerge Setup

until I got to Step 3 and the Confirm Data Source which I
negotiated successfully


I was then asked to use the
Microsoft Office Excel dialogue box for Named or cell range


This suggests that
a. your data source is a .xls (old-style) workbook, rather than a
new-style .xlsx
b. you either have the Word Option "Confirm file format conversion on
open" checked (Word office button-Word Options-Advanced-General), or
for some reason, Word was unable to recognise that the file was an Excel
file. (Perhaps it is password-protected, for example).
c. You selected "MS Excel Worksheets via DDE (*.xls)" in the COnfirm
Data Source dialog box

If you know you need to use DDE, then that is actually what you need to
do. DDE can only access the first worksheet in the workbook, and in the
dialog box that asks for Named or cell range, you should see "Entire
spreadsheet" as the default option. Select that, and you get the data in
the first worksheet.

If you have no reason to believe that you need to use DDE, then instead
of the "MS Excel Worksheets via DDE (*.xls)" option, select the "OLE DB
Database Files" option. This is the default, i.e. what Word would try to
use if "Confirm file format conversion on open" was unchecked. Then you
would typically be presented with a dialog box titled "Select Table"
that lists all the worksheets and named ranges. If you see e.g.
"Sheet1$" and "Sheet1" in there, choose "Sheet1$" to get the whole
worksheet.


Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

On 06/01/2010 17:56, Bartonside wrote:
I have been trying, using a print out of the help pages, to set up some
mailing labels, using Word 2007 and an Excel worksheet. It was all going
swimmingly until I got to Step 3 and the Confirm Data Source which I
negotiated successfully. Then I got a warning window about possible damage to
my nice new computer and a BLANK worksheet. I was then asked to use the
Microsoft Office Excel dialogue box for Named or cell range. I have no idea
what the dialogue box is or how to find it. Can someone please put me out of
my misery?