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#1
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Waiting for Microsoft Excel to accept DDE Commands
Mail merge hangs on opening source document (Named range in Excel Spreadsheet) Status bar displays the following messagaes.... Opening Source Document Starting Excel Waiting for Microsoft Excel to accept DDE Commands Opening Data File Requesting Query information from Microsoft Excel When the system hangs, it does so during the third step - Waiting for Microsoft Excel to accept DDE Commands. The dark blue bar at the top of the screen turns into a faded blue bar. . I have tried many things but nothing has worked so far. Any suggestons? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, -- Ohmes ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ohmes's Profile: http://www.officehelp.in/member.php?userid=195 View this thread: http://www.officehelp.in/showthread.php?t=684199 Visit - http://www.officehelp.in | http://www.officehelp.in/archive/index.php | http://www.officehelp.in/index/index.php |
#2
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Hi Ohmes,
Which version of Office are we dealing with, here? The first things I'd check if this turns up is 1. Is "ignore other applications" activated in Excel's Tools/Options/General? 2. Is Excel displaying a dialog box, and waiting for the user to dismiss it? Mail merge hangs on opening source document (Named range in Excel Spreadsheet) Status bar displays the following messagaes.... Opening Source Document Starting Excel Waiting for Microsoft Excel to accept DDE Commands Opening Data File Requesting Query information from Microsoft Excel When the system hangs, it does so during the third step - Waiting for Microsoft Excel to accept DDE Commands. The dark blue bar at the top of the screen turns into a faded blue bar. . Cindy Meister INTER-Solutions, Switzerland http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004) http://www.word.mvps.org This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail :-) |
#3
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Thanks Using Office 2000. & .... No the "ignore other applications" box is not ticked -- Ohmes ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ohmes's Profile: http://www.officehelp.in/member.php?userid=195 View this thread: http://www.officehelp.in/showthread.php?t=684199 Visit - http://www.officehelp.in | http://www.officehelp.in/archive/index.php | http://www.officehelp.in/index/index.php |
#4
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Hi Ohmes,
Using Office 2000. & .... No the "ignore other applications" box is not ticked And you're certain that, when this happens, there's no dialog box displayed in Excel, waiting for you to take action? Since the behavior isn't regular, it's difficult to trouble-shoot, which is why I'd suspect a dialog box, or something IN the Excel environment. There are alternative connection methods to bring in data from Excel, the only problem is, using them won't bring across date or numeric formats. This means you'd need to specify the formats in the Word merge fields. You'll find information on how to do that in the MailMerge FAQ on my website. In order to get Word to let you select the data connection method, activate "Select method" in the Open datasource dialog box. The first things I'd check if this turns up is 1. Is "ignore other applications" activated in Excel's Tools/Options/General? 2. Is Excel displaying a dialog box, and waiting for the user to dismiss it? Mail merge hangs on opening source document (Named range in Excel Spreadsheet) Status bar displays the following messagaes.... Opening Source Document Starting Excel Waiting for Microsoft Excel to accept DDE Commands Opening Data File Requesting Query information from Microsoft Excel When the system hangs, it does so during the third step - Waiting for Microsoft Excel to accept DDE Commands. The dark blue bar at the top of the screen turns into a faded blue bar. . Cindy Meister INTER-Solutions, Switzerland http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004) http://www.word.mvps.org This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail :-) |
#5
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Thanks Cindy. The only issue is that the excel file is a shared file and it seems as though using ODBC prevents others from accessing the Excel file! DDE allows this. I have heard of others having the same problem. Wonder if Microsoft have got a solution to the DDE problem. Thanks again! -- Ohmes ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ohmes's Profile: http://www.officehelp.in/member.php?userid=195 View this thread: http://www.officehelp.in/showthread.php?t=684199 Visit - http://www.officehelp.in | http://www.officehelp.in/archive/index.php | http://www.officehelp.in/index/index.php |
#6
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Hi Ohmes,
The only issue is that the excel file is a shared file and it seems as though using ODBC prevents others from accessing the Excel file! You could try using Word's spreadsheet converter, instead. Since that makes a copy of the file, in memory, I'd think the original file would be released... DDE allows this. I have heard of others having the same problem. Wonder if Microsoft have got a solution to the DDE problem. The DDE problem most people have is that Word "cannot re-establish the connection". And it's usually not intermittant, but constant. Yours is something else... About Microsoft doing something about it: I doubt it. DDE is old technology and works less and less reliably on each newer version of Windows. But, hey, one can tell them :-) On the microsoft.com site there's a portal to the newsgroups (requires you to "log on" using Passport). There you can post a SUGGESTION that they should put more support into making sure DDE as a connection method for mail merge works more reliably. I'm sure you'd get a number of votes supporting it :-) Cindy Meister INTER-Solutions, Switzerland http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004) http://www.word.mvps.org This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail :-) |
#7
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Thanks Cindy! -- Ohmes ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ohmes's Profile: http://www.officehelp.in/member.php?userid=195 View this thread: http://www.officehelp.in/showthread.php?t=684199 Visit - http://www.officehelp.in | http://www.officehelp.in/archive/index.php | http://www.officehelp.in/index/index.php |
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