i have created a mail merge document in Word 2003 and have used an Access
2003 table as the data source.

In other mail merge documents (set up in the same way) I can edit the
recipients from within the Mail Merge task pane in word. Now that option is
shaded in and unavailable. What has caused this to be unavailable? Is it
possible to edit the recipient list without opening the Access file each time?

No, if you want to maintain the datasource in Access, you will have to use
Access to edit it, unless you install the old mail merge helper utility by
selecting Customize from the Tools menu and then going to the Commands tab
and selecting the All Commands category and then locating the mail merge
helper item from the list of commands and click and drag it onto a toolbar.

--
Please respond to the Newsgroup for the benefit of others who may be
interested. Questions sent directly to me will only be answered on a paid
consulting basis.

Hope this helps,
Doug Robbins - Word MVP
"Linton" wrote in message
...
i have created a mail merge document in Word 2003 and have used an Access
2003 table as the data source.

In other mail merge documents (set up in the same way) I can edit the
recipients from within the Mail Merge task pane in word. Now that option
is
shaded in and unavailable. What has caused this to be unavailable? Is it
possible to edit the recipient list without opening the Access file each
time?

Thanks Doug for the prompt reply! I tried to use the mail merge helper to
help me to edit the data. It said I had to "break the link" to the Access
file and then set up a table in a word document as the source. I am not sure
if I am using it correctly?

There are a few mail merge documents on our system that use an Access table
to store the data and can be edited in word. How can I set up a mail merge
document
uses Access/Excel for the data source?

"Doug Robbins" wrote:

No, if you want to maintain the datasource in Access, you will have to use
Access to edit it, unless you install the old mail merge helper utility by
selecting Customize from the Tools menu and then going to the Commands tab
and selecting the All Commands category and then locating the mail merge
helper item from the list of commands and click and drag it onto a toolbar.

--
Please respond to the Newsgroup for the benefit of others who may be
interested. Questions sent directly to me will only be answered on a paid
consulting basis.

Hope this helps,
Doug Robbins - Word MVP
"Linton" wrote in message
...
i have created a mail merge document in Word 2003 and have used an Access
2003 table as the data source.

In other mail merge documents (set up in the same way) I can edit the
recipients from within the Mail Merge task pane in word. Now that option
is
shaded in and unavailable. What has caused this to be unavailable? Is it
possible to edit the recipient list without opening the Access file each
time?