[Walter Briscoe]

In message of Mon, 8 Sep 2008
09:35:15 in microsoft.public.word.mailmerge.fields, Walter Briscoe
writes

[snip]

I suppose I should test your other examples and report any exceptions.
Give me a little time!

I did not find anything remarkable in the rest of the tutorial.

However, I have found something which I find VERY interesting in
"Mailmerge Main Document.doc".

I used the sysinternals free product procmon to monitor attempts to open
*.xls.

During the attempt to open "C:\wfb\mailmerge\CatalogueMerge\Mailmerge
Main Document.doc", After QueryOpen fails on
"C:\Users\Waramanga\Documents\Catalogue Merge Data.xls", it succeeds in
opening "C:\wfb\mailmerge\CatalogueMerge\Catalogue Merge Data.xls" This
recovery action seems to be a feature when opening data sources as "MS
Excel Worksheets via DDE (*.xls)" and absent for other types of data
source.
I have not seen it described before. It allows a .doc, .xls pfile pair
to me arbitrarily moved together without need of any fix up. I find it
much easier than Cindy Meister's brilliant method in "Office VBA: Macros
You Can Use Today" to establish the connection. However, her method
words for all types of data source.

So, my tentative recipe to allow a portable mail merge connection
between a .doc and a .xls in Word 2003, SP1 is ensure
"Tools|Options|General|Confirm conversion at Open" is checked; in
"Select recipients", "Use an existing list" & "Confirm data source" as
"MS Excel Worksheets via DDE (*.xls)".

I shall try it in other mail merges I wrote previously.
If I am wrong, I hope to be quickly shouted down.
--
Walter Briscoe