How to tell Word 2002/2003 to ask for a connection method
such as DDE when you connect to a data source

The following screenshots show how to set up Word 2002 and 2003 so that it asks what type of connection you want to use when connecting to a MailMerge data source. Specifically, for Access and Excel files, this lets you change the connection type to DDE.

At the moment I have no equivalent screenshots for Word 2007, but in that version you can Click on the Office Button, then check "Word Options"|Advanced|General|"Confirm file format conversion on open "

Each Step may be illustrated by one or more screenshots.

Step 1: In Word, ensure that a document is open so that you can access the Tools|Options menu:

Step 2: Open the Tools|Options dialog

Step 3: Ensure you are looking at the "General" tab

Step 4: Check the "Confirm conversion at Open" box and proceed.

Now let's open a data source: we should see an additional dialog box that lets us choose the Connection method.

First, the following screenshot shows the Excel workbook/worksheet we're going to connect to. As you can see, the column called "value" contains a Sterling currency amount (it could just as easily be a U.S.$ amount).

Step 5: Open a Mail merge Main document (in this case, it is already attached to the Excel spreadsheet shown above, using the OLE DB connection method)

Step 6: Display the MailMerge toolbar  to make some of the following steps easier

Step 7: Preferably, disconnect the existing data source. if you do not, you may find that Word cannot open the new data source, even if it is the same as the existing data source. When you disconnect the data source, Word should retain all the document content, layout, and field codes. However, it loses the data source, any individual record selections you may have made in the Mail Merge Recipients dialog box, and any sorts and filters you have applied. So if you need to re-instate those things, ensure you write down enough information to let you do so.

Step 8: Select the new data source. In this case, it is the same data source as before, but we are going to connect to it in a different way.

The list of connection types may differ in your copy of Word. In particular, you are unlikely to see "Excel via Converter (*.xls)" unless you have upgraded from a version of Word which had that converter installed. Ignore "Excel Files 2 via ODBC" - it's just a copy of the standard ODBC method I happen to have created on my PC.

You might have to wait a while for the workbook to open. Word may have to start Excel, then it has to load the workbook, and things such as virus checkers may also slow things down.

When Word has made the connection, you'll probably see the Field results have disappeared and been replaced by <<key>> and <<value>>. You can click the "View Merged Data" icon to display the field results again.

At last, we see the result we were looking for!

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