Gordon,

Have you checked the box against the "Confirm conversions at open" item
under ToolsOptionsGeneral?

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP
"G.G. Biggar, Jr." wrote in message
...
Sir Douglas --

I'm not sure that I know what you mean when you say "attach the data
source...select(ing) the DDE method..."

If I use a blank space in the name field of the Excel file (in place of an
apostrophe), there is no problem in creating a match-up during the merge.
I
think that the software doesn't like my single-quote in that it is looking
for another closing quote, so to speak.

Gordon



"Doug Robbins" wrote in message
...
Hi Gordon,

In Word, select Options for the Tools menu and then on the General Tab,
check the "Confirm conversions at open" item and then when you attach the
data source to the mailmerge main document, select the DDE method of
connection and see if that overcomes the problem.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP
"G.G. Biggar, Jr." wrote in message
...
I have an Excel data file that I use as a master list for merges.
Recently,
I added a last name with an apostrophe (e.g., O'Donnell). Word comes
back
during a merge with the message, "Word could not parse your query
options
into a valid SQL string."

I can get around this by omitting the apostrophe in the master list,
but
it
does not seem very professional. Is there an alternative?

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

Gordon Biggar
Houston, Texas