Hi Doug,
I made some progress with your suggestions.

I can get the merge to work using the Merge to New Document command from the
MailMerge Toolbar, as you suggested, but only if I first go through the
routine of openning the Excel DB, which includes choosing the Selecting the
Entire Sheet option.

Is there a way to not have to open the DB every time I do a first time merge
and just have WORD open it automatically, f it needs to; or get it to connect
to ity permanently? It is the only DB used with that document.

"Doug Robbins - Word MVP" wrote:

Try using the mailmerge toolbar.

It might however be necessary to change the way in which you connect to the
datasource. To enable a selection to be made, from the Tools menu in Word,
select Options and on the General tab, check the box for "Confirm
conversions at open."

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

"MichaelHunter" wrote in message
news
I added the MailMerge Helper Icon to WORD 2003 to use as I did in the 2000
version.
When I try to merge a record from the Excel DB into the main document, I
get
a message that reads:

"WORD could not merge the main document with its data source because the
data records were empty or no data records matched your query options."

Yet, the data records ARE there and steps 1 and 2 of the MailMerge Helper
show the correct doc and Excel DB.

The merge works fine if I use the Task Pane guide. But that is so time
consuming!

Any suggestions on how to fix this problem would be greatly appreciated.

Michael.