See
http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk/t0003.htm for a more complete picture.
The DDE nethod works fine for a lot of people but does not cope with
everything.
What I would say is that the ODBC driver and OLE DB provider have always
needed fixing (and still need fixing) so that they behave consistently no
matter what data and formatting are in the sheet. Then we really could leave
the DDE method behind.
--
Peter Jamieson
http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk
"jim" wrote in message
...
here is a good solution ms word 2003 (and probably works for other
versions)
for mail merges using an excel database (just an excel spreadsheet with
your
merge information)
in microsoft word 2003, with any document open, go to tools, options
click the general tab
check "confirm conversion at open"
exit microsoft word
restart microsoft word
connect your merge document to your database (excel spreadsheet/ms word
document with table)
when you do this, it will ask you to "Confirm Data Source"--choose MS
Excel
Spreadsheets via DDE
it will now show all of the information in the spreadsheet.
why microsoft doesn't make this the default is beyond me. it has taken me
5
years to figure this out and i consider myself a pretty knowledgable user.