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Posted to microsoft.public.word.mailmerge.fields
Peter Jamieson
 
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Default Mail Merge Data Question

When I select a field and press F9, it shows the { MERGEFIELD "Name" }.
In other words, it doesn't change.


If the field code is showing, you would also have to use Alt-F9 to show the
"result": if you see the data, then updating the fields hasn't made any
difference. if you see Name, it should be OK.

Peter Jamieson

"Tom Bean" wrote in message
...
Peter,

The only template that is listed in Tools|Templates and Add-ins is
normal.dot. There was a 'Hyperlink' listed on the Styles tab in the
Organizer but I deleted it and the data still showed up.

When I select a field and press F9, it shows the { MERGEFIELD "Name" }.
In other words, it doesn't change.

I renamed normal.dot and Word created a new one, however, it didn't make
any difference either.

I started a new document and it switches between { MERGEFIELD "Name" } and
Name when I hit F9. I didn't open a data file to get my field names
because I was afraid I would recreate the same problem I have now. It
looks like this is a solution but since I have over 50 fields in the
document, it will take some time to recreate it from scratch.

Thanks,
Tom

"Peter Jamieson" wrote in message
...
I checked the macros and the document doesn't have any. I'm not really
sure how to check if the document is linked to a template but I created
the new document by clicking the 'New Blank Document' button not by
creating it from a template.


You can find out what template a document is linked to using
Tools|Templates and Add-ins. A document is always linked to a template,
but when you click the new blank document it's linked to the default
template, normal.dot.

Further possibilities:
a. select the fields, press F9. Do they still display the field
"results", or fieldname etc. ?
b. normal.dot could be linked to a data source. In that case, any "New
Blank Document" would be linked to that data source. If that is the case,
you need to find normal.dot (typically on a WIndows XP system it is in
the following folder, where you substitute your user name for your
username

C:\Documents and Settings\your username\Application
Data\Microsoft\Templates

Then open it, enable the mailmerge toolbar, click the first button,
select "Normal Word Document", disable the mailmerge toolbar, save and
close normal.dot. Or, if you do not have macros, autotexts, keyboard
assignments etc. stored in normal.dot, just rename normal.dot and let
Word create a new one.
c. create a new normal.dot as in (b), then recreate your document from
scratch (don't copy/paste).
d. I have one other idea but it's so unlikely that it's probably better
not to go there right now...

Peter Jamieson

"Tom Bean" wrote in message
...
Peter,

I did something that used to fix documents several versions ago, i.e.
selected the whole document except the last paragraph mark, copied it
and pasted it into a new document. After doing that, the new document
opens without displaying the message box but hitting Alt-F9 still
populates the document with that data from the deleted spreadsheet.

I checked the macros and the document doesn't have any. I'm not really
sure how to check if the document is linked to a template but I created
the new document by clicking the 'New Blank Document' button not by
creating it from a template.

One additional thing I didn't mention, I copied the document to a share
drive and opened it on another system and the data from the deleted
spreadsheet still gets merged into the document.

Tom

"Peter Jamieson" wrote in message
...
When I open the document, a message box pops up with the following
message:
"Opening this document will run the following SQL command:
SELECT * FROM 'Sheet1$'
Data from your database will be placed in the document. Do you want to
continure?"

Certainly that suggests that Word thinks the document is linked to a
datasource. If you say "no" and choose the option to get rid of the
mail merge connection (the fields will be left in the document), then
close and re-open the document, what happens?

Does the document have any macros in it, or is it linked to a template
with an AutoOpen macro?

PEter Jamieson

"Tom Bean" wrote in message
...
Peter,

The commands did not return anything. Since the datasource doesn't
exist, could it be a SQL command in some other object?

When I open the document, a message box pops up with the following
message:
"Opening this document will run the following SQL command:
SELECT * FROM 'Sheet1$'
Data from your database will be placed in the document. Do you want to
continure?"

Do you have any suggestions about what else I could check?

Thanks,
Tom

"Peter Jamieson" wrote in message
...
1. Open the VB editor, type the following in the Immediate window

print activedocument.mailmerge.datasource.name
print activedocument.mailmerge.datasource.connectstring
print activedocument.mailmerge.datasource.querystring

(If you're using Word 2002 unfortunately some of those commands may
fail).

Do the results give you any clues? If not, what are the results?

Peter Jamieson
"Tom Bean" wrote in message
...
I have a mail merge document that has never been linked to a data
source but shows data when Alt-F9 is pressed to hide the merge
fields. The data shown is from a data source, an Excel workbook, that
was linked to another mail merge document but the Excel workbook has
been deleted.

My question is: Where is Word getting the data to merge into the
document?

Thanks,
Tom