Either select Toolbars from the View menu and check to Mailmerge item to
display the mailmerge toolbar which contains buttons that allow you to
perform the whole merge process, or to get the old Mail Merge Helper back,
select Customize from the Tools menu and then on the Commands tab, select
the All Commands category and scroll down through the list of Commands until
you find the Mail Merge Helper item and then click and drag it onto a menu
or toolbar.

Either of these way should allow you to avoid the issue that troubles you.

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Hope this helps,
Doug Robbins - Word MVP
"TomC" wrote in message
...
I now have Office Pro 2003. Before I had Office 97, and I developed some
mail merge procedures producing confirmation letters which required 38
data
elements. Both my main and data files were .doc files. These do work with
Office Pro 2003. But now I find when I go to create a new mail merge, the
data portion of the mail merge directs me to a New Address List Panel
which
creates a .mdb file. The disadvantage of this is that I must switch from
Word to Access to edit my data which is inconvenient. Is there some way I
can generate the data portion of the mail merge as a .doc file like I used
to
do it?