[Steve]

This just started, and it was just successful in opening data.
Word 97.
Please help

[Peter Jamieson]

What is the data source? Where is it?

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

STEVE wrote:
This just started, and it was just successful in opening data.
Word 97.
Please help

[Steve]

It is an excel cvs extension on my hardrive

"Peter Jamieson" wrote:

What is the data source? Where is it?

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

STEVE wrote:
This just started, and it was just successful in opening data.
Word 97.
Please help

[Peter Jamieson]

Do you mean a .csv, which is a delimited text file that you can open in,
and save from, Excel?

If so, can you open it in (say) Notepad and verify that it really is a
plain text file delimited by commas?

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

STEVE wrote:
It is an excel cvs extension on my hardrive

"Peter Jamieson" wrote:

What is the data source? Where is it?

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

STEVE wrote:
This just started, and it was just successful in opening data.
Word 97.
Please help

[Steve]

It is, now what?
It's doing this even on old mail-merge files that use to work.

"Peter Jamieson" wrote:

Do you mean a .csv, which is a delimited text file that you can open in,
and save from, Excel?

If so, can you open it in (say) Notepad and verify that it really is a
plain text file delimited by commas?

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

STEVE wrote:
It is an excel cvs extension on my hardrive

"Peter Jamieson" wrote:

What is the data source? Where is it?

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

STEVE wrote:
This just started, and it was just successful in opening data.
Word 97.
Please help

[Steve]

Yes, I do. now what?

"Peter Jamieson" wrote:

Do you mean a .csv, which is a delimited text file that you can open in,
and save from, Excel?

If so, can you open it in (say) Notepad and verify that it really is a
plain text file delimited by commas?

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

STEVE wrote:
It is an excel cvs extension on my hardrive

"Peter Jamieson" wrote:

What is the data source? Where is it?

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

STEVE wrote:
This just started, and it was just successful in opening data.
Word 97.
Please help

[Peter Jamieson]

There are three main possibilities, e.g.
a. something has changed in Word/Windows that prevent Word from
opening your file
b. something has changed about the content or structure of your file
that prevents Word from opening it.
c. the Word Mail Merge Main document has been corrupted in some way
and that is the cuse of the problem.

You can test (c) by creating a completely new mail merge main document
and trying to connect to the same data source.

Otherwise, I would start by guessing that it is (b) and try to test that
theory. For example, if you save the current version of your file, then
perhaps if you have a backup of an earlier version saved somewhere you
could try using that as the data source. Or if you don't have an old
version, you could consider constructing a test version with only a few
rows and see if that works OK. If it does, then (b) looks pretty likely
and it becomes a question of working out what has changed. If older test
data doesn't work either, then (a) looks more likely.


Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

STEVE wrote:
Yes, I do. now what?

"Peter Jamieson" wrote:

Do you mean a .csv, which is a delimited text file that you can open in,
and save from, Excel?

If so, can you open it in (say) Notepad and verify that it really is a
plain text file delimited by commas?

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

STEVE wrote:
It is an excel cvs extension on my hardrive

"Peter Jamieson" wrote:

What is the data source? Where is it?

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

STEVE wrote:
This just started, and it was just successful in opening data.
Word 97.
Please help

[Steve]

It may have been a or b. I restored the system to 3 days earlier and it works.
When this happened, I was successful merging, then immeditately therafter,
it stopped merging: "unable to open" stsrted.
How can this happen!????

"Peter Jamieson" wrote:

There are three main possibilities, e.g.
a. something has changed in Word/Windows that prevent Word from
opening your file
b. something has changed about the content or structure of your file
that prevents Word from opening it.
c. the Word Mail Merge Main document has been corrupted in some way
and that is the cuse of the problem.

You can test (c) by creating a completely new mail merge main document
and trying to connect to the same data source.

Otherwise, I would start by guessing that it is (b) and try to test that
theory. For example, if you save the current version of your file, then
perhaps if you have a backup of an earlier version saved somewhere you
could try using that as the data source. Or if you don't have an old
version, you could consider constructing a test version with only a few
rows and see if that works OK. If it does, then (b) looks pretty likely
and it becomes a question of working out what has changed. If older test
data doesn't work either, then (a) looks more likely.


Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

STEVE wrote:
Yes, I do. now what?

"Peter Jamieson" wrote:

Do you mean a .csv, which is a delimited text file that you can open in,
and save from, Excel?

If so, can you open it in (say) Notepad and verify that it really is a
plain text file delimited by commas?

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

STEVE wrote:
It is an excel cvs extension on my hardrive

"Peter Jamieson" wrote:

What is the data source? Where is it?

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

STEVE wrote:
This just started, and it was just successful in opening data.
Word 97.
Please help

[Peter Jamieson]

Much as I'd like to be able to explain "what went wrong" when things do
not work, it's usually difficult to do much more than make a few
guesses, unless I happen to be sitting there looking at the set-up
myself. Mostly, getting to a state where the thing works again is the
best that can be managed.

Some possibilities:
a. you have automatic updates installed and Windows has updated
something (not sure anything in Office 97 would be updated now)
b. something was corrupted and restoring the system put it back.

But...

Are you saying it started working again after the restore and it still
works, or it started working again and it has now stopped working again?

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

STEVE wrote:
It may have been a or b. I restored the system to 3 days earlier and it works.
When this happened, I was successful merging, then immeditately therafter,
it stopped merging: "unable to open" stsrted.
How can this happen!????

"Peter Jamieson" wrote:

There are three main possibilities, e.g.
a. something has changed in Word/Windows that prevent Word from
opening your file
b. something has changed about the content or structure of your file
that prevents Word from opening it.
c. the Word Mail Merge Main document has been corrupted in some way
and that is the cuse of the problem.

You can test (c) by creating a completely new mail merge main document
and trying to connect to the same data source.

Otherwise, I would start by guessing that it is (b) and try to test that
theory. For example, if you save the current version of your file, then
perhaps if you have a backup of an earlier version saved somewhere you
could try using that as the data source. Or if you don't have an old
version, you could consider constructing a test version with only a few
rows and see if that works OK. If it does, then (b) looks pretty likely
and it becomes a question of working out what has changed. If older test
data doesn't work either, then (a) looks more likely.


Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

STEVE wrote:
Yes, I do. now what?

"Peter Jamieson" wrote:

Do you mean a .csv, which is a delimited text file that you can open in,
and save from, Excel?

If so, can you open it in (say) Notepad and verify that it really is a
plain text file delimited by commas?

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

STEVE wrote:
It is an excel cvs extension on my hardrive

"Peter Jamieson" wrote:

What is the data source? Where is it?

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

STEVE wrote:
This just started, and it was just successful in opening data.
Word 97.
Please help