Probably too late now but...

Quite a lot of things can stop DDE from working but unfortunately it isn't
easy to tell what has gone wrong in any given instance.

One thing that can happen is that if your data source is already open (which
might not obviously be the case) then Word will fail to reconnect via DDE
because Excel will not open the sheet.

Restarting Windows is probably the best way to ensure (although
unfortunately even that isn't guaranteed) that the no other processes are
blocking DDE and your data source hasn't been opened. Otherwise, it may be
worth having a look at Windows Task Manager to see whether there are more
copies of the WINWORD.EXE or EXCEL.EXE processes than you expected.

Peter Jamieson



"Noisycreek" wrote in message
...
Word cannot re-establish a DDE connection to excel to copmplete the
current
task

I have been using mail merge for a while now, word doc, excel spreadsheet,
and every now and again this message comes up, I dont understand how it
works, but can anyone give me the steps to re-establish the connection.
Up
to this point I have muddled my way thru - but this time I cant get it to
reconnect.

Thanks!