View Single Post
  #4   Report Post  
Posted to microsoft.public.word.mailmerge.fields
Peter Jamieson Peter Jamieson is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 4,582
Default error messages when connecting to an MS Access query

I tried using a DDE connection, but I wasn't able to get it to work.
Instead, I got messages saying it couldn't make the connection.


When you try to make a DDE connection, if the database is not already open,
you can get problems because DDE starts Access, Access tries to open the
database, and may display one or more dialog boxes (e.g. the security dialog
box). They may not be displayed in front of the Word document, so you do not
know that you have to respond to something. Then they time out, and the DDE
connection fails. So it may be worth using Alt-tab to cycle through the
various Windows.

AFAIK with queries that contain UDFs, you either have to get DDE to work,
one way or another, or find a workaround that avoids the UDF. Only the
Access programme "understands" UDFs - no other method of getting at the
Access data really knows what they are.

--
Peter Jamieson
http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

"Paul Ponzelli" wrote in message
...
You're right, Peter, I have a user-defined function in my query.

I tried using a DDE connection, but I wasn't able to get it to work.
Instead, I got messages saying it couldn't make the connection. One
alternative is to run a make-table query that creates a temporary table
from the single record to mail merge. I'll probably do something like
that.

Thanks for your help with this.

Paul


"Peter Jamieson" wrote in message
...
You will probably have difficulty in Word 2002 or later if your query has
any of the following:
a. runtime parameters (but then it probably would not be listed)
b. user-defined functions (i.e. functions written in Access VBA)
c. some of the financial series functions, and one or two other functions
such as "replace"
d. wildcards, e.g. used in a LIKE clause
e. references to data outside the Access database (this is a bit
hit-and-miss)

In most cases, you should be able to get around this by using the old DDE
method to connect - check Word Tools|Options|General|COnfirm conversions
at open, go through the connection process again, and select the DDE
option when it is offered.

--
Peter Jamieson
http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

"Paul" wrote in message
...
I'm attempting to create a Mail Merge document using a Select query in
MS Access 2003, and I get error messages saying things like "Word was
unable to open the data source" or "Record 1 contained too few data
fields." The thing that puzzles me about this, however, is that I have
no problem connecting to a table in the same Access database. The
problem only occurs when I try to connect to a query.

Because of the data I need to merge into my document, however, I need to
use a query. Is there something I need to do when I'm trying to merge
with data in an Access query so that I can avoid these problems?

Thanks in advance,

Paul