Mail Merge - Multiple Access Instances

[stephen81]

I've got a mail merge document set up, but whenever I open it, it calls a new instance of my database. I know this is a common problem when you set a different database title, but I haven't done that. I still have that blank and the title showing in the title bar of my database is 'Microsoft Access'.
I have also tried using odbc instead of dde but when I try to set up the record source of my document as a query in my database with odbc I get and error message saying 'Word was unable to open the data source'. I need to prevent the new instance of access as the query parameters for the mail merge come from a form the user fills in, which the new instance of access can't see.
Does that make sense?
Anyone got any ideas?

 

[Navyguy]

Hi Stephen81

I am no expert in this by any means, but this is what I do…I am on the road a lot and want to keep up with my learning, I find that moving my dbs or making major changes to a db has some effect on the mail merge. What I do is re-establish the dde link from the word end instead of the access end. Open the mail merge document(s), select the query, etc. This seems to solve the problem until it is moved or I make “major” changes to what ever I am working on again. I am sure this is only treating the symptom and not solving the problem, but it might give you some direction to start looking in to come up with a permanent solution.

Navyguy

 

[stephen81]

I've tried that but unfortunately it didn't make any difference. I've now got a workaround, albeit not a very satisfactory one. I've gone with ODBC but as I couldn't get ODBC to work with a query (is that a limitation of ODBC?), I'm now generating a temporary table to use as the record source for my mail merge.