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Peter Jamieson Peter Jamieson is offline
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Default After mail merge, "File format is not valid" error when opening XLS file

I would be interested to know how you are editing your Excel data source.

If I select an Excel worksheet as a data source in Word 2003 using the
default connection method (OLE DB), and use "Edit "Mail Merge Recipients",
the Edit button is greyed out. If you are unaware of what connection method
you are using, then Word should be using OLE DB.

At least one reason why Microsoft probably disabled the Edit button in this
case is because the mechanism that Word would have to use to edit the data
when it connects using OLE DB is unreliable and likely to cause exactly the
kind of corruption you describe.

If you have checked Word Tools|Options|"Confirm conversion at Open" and
selected DDE, then the worksheet should be opened in Excel and clicking that
Edit button in Word should take you to Excel to edit the data. Another
possibility is that Word.

If you used (or Word used) ODBC to make the connection, Word enables the
Edit button, but when you click it, Word asks if you want to use MS Query to
edit it. If you say no, nothing happens (AFAIK) - i.e. you get no
opportunity to do the edits. If you say Yes, in theory Word opens MS Query,
but again, it now uses an editing mechanism that I suspect is now
unreliable.

Maybe your copy of Word is doing something different?

As for what you can do to recover your existing data, I'm sorry, I simply
don't know Excel well enough to make a suggestion - you might try an Excel
group. Otherwise, let's hope you have a recent backup.

Peter Jamieson


"Bob on Whidbey" wrote in message
oups.com...
While completing a mail merge in Word, I edited a few fields in the
data base (an XLS file). Upon closing Word, I was asked if I wanted to
save the changes to the data base. Of course I said yes. All
subsequent attempts to open that XLS file have been blocked with the
error message in Excel: "File format is not valid". I am using Office
2003.

It seems like Word has created a different version of the file for its
purposes, and overwritten the XLS file in the process. Yet, it's hard
to believe that Word would create a different version of the file and
keep the same file extension!

What do I need to do to open that XLS file in Excel?