[KMikaela]

Dear Peter,

It seems the "Find Entry" button on the Mail merge tool bar only works after
you open the "mail merge recipeients" Is this because the items in the data
source have changed and it is a query? Is there a way to set this to do
automatically or are users going to have to refresh this each time they enter
a template? I have well over 200 templates in use, and I am at a loss for
why there are so many issues with mail merge in Word 2003.

Many thanks,

Mikaela

"KMikaela" wrote:

Hi Peter,

Have you tried defining an Access query that selects the necessary 1000
records and using that as the data source?

This is exactly what I'm doing, so it is working well.

Thank you.

"Peter Jamieson" wrote:

Hello Mikaela

Also, I have been
using the Find record button on the Mail Merge tool bar, sorry for not
being
clearer.

FWIW It is not your fault or my fault that it does not work, and that this
kind of predefined limit is not specified.


as I had tried the OLE
DB connection and it doesn't see the table in Access at all So I will just
need to filter all tables as we only search the
most recently entered records.

Have you tried defining an Access query that selects the necessary 1000
records and using that as the data source?

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

"KMikaela" wrote in message
...
Dear Peter,

Thank you so much for your detailed and quick reply. I had thought it
might
be the number of records in Word 2003 but had not found any data to
indicate
the total capacity of records (they really should write that down some
where
- but I gues most people don't use mail merge for more than 10,000
records),
although it worked beautifully in Word 2000, ah well. Also, I have been
using the Find record button on the Mail Merge tool bar, sorry for not
being
clearer.

Prior to receiving your email I had tried putting a filter on the table to
only pull the top 1,000 records and that worked well, as I had tried the
OLE
DB connection and it doesn't see the table in Access at all, so it is
unable
to connect. So I will just need to filter all tables as we only search
the
most recently entered records.

I do appreciate your respons, I am very glad I could just confirm what the
problem was, as there was nothing out there saying how many records the
dialogue could hold, I now now how to proceed.

Many thanks,

Mikaela

"Peter Jamieson" wrote:

Unfortunately, there is a cluster of unhelpful problems in this area -
i.e.,
solving one usually means that you face another.

To recap...

1. Using the Find in Field function from (e.g.) the Mailmerge toolbar
fails, certainly with this type of data source and connection type (DDE).

2. Using the Find button from within the Mail Merge Recipients dialog
box
seems to work OK here, but
a. it can take a long time to populate the dialog box
b. the dialog box only holds 10,000 records, and Word can crash if
you
have more (in fact,Word's processing clearly changes at the 10,000 record
mark in other places that do not have anything to do with this dialog box

3. You can solve (1) and 2(a) by using OLE DB to connect. However,
a. the dialog box still only holds 10,000 records and the Find button
in
the box will not find a record beyond that
b. there are potentially several reasons why an OLE DB connection
will
not work for you

4. You can work around 3(a) by using the Find button on the MailMerge
toolbar rather than the Find button in the Mail Merge Recipients Dialog
box.
You may also notice that the dialog itself is different - with DDE, you
have
to select a field to search.

5. The question is, can you work around all the problems alluded to in
3(b),
which include:
a. can you connect to a workgroup-secured database via OLE DB? If so,
can
you do so in a way that does not significantly undermine workgroup
security
(e.g. by embedding plain text login/password info in the Word document or
..odc file)?
b. can OLE DB "see" the tables/queries you want to use - e.g. are they
linked tables or parameter queries? And if they are parameter queries,
how
do you get Word to ask for the paramters?
c. does OLE DB return the records you expect (e.g. it probably won't if
you
are using wildcard characters in LIKE expressions in queries.
d. perhaps other stuff that I have forgotten.

6. So can you tell us which of those problems you would need to overcome
or
any other reasons why you couldn't move to OLE DB?

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

"KMikaela" wrote in message
...
I also have the issue of word closing, and have recently upgraded from
Windows 2000 to Windows XP and from Office 2000 to Office 2003. In
templates
that functioned well before, the "find" command no longer locates the
record
and when I try to save the sort order on the Access data, it causes
word
to
close. The database table has over 19,000 records with 78 field names,
so
I'm not sure if this poses a problem for word 2003, as it worked well
in
2000. I am using a secure database with a DDE connection so I'm not
sure
if
that is the issue either. I have also installed the mso.dll fix, but
still
having the same issue. We use over 20 templates with mail merge to
this
table and users are having to scroll through endless records any
assitance
would be greatly appreciated.