Basic Mail Merge Question

  • Thread starter Thread starter Rhino
  • Start date Start date
R

Rhino

I have a document that I wrote to produce a set of labels and it does a mail
merge. The merge works fine and the labels come out perfectly. I just want
to understand one thing.

Whenever I open the document, I get a warning message:

==============================================================
"Opening this document will run the following SQL command:

SELECT * FROM `Members2006` ORDER BY `SequenceNumber` ASC

Data from your database will be placed in the document. Do you want to
continue?

(YES) (NO)
==============================================================

When I press YES, I get a Microsoft Word dialog that says:

Membership_Cards.doc is a mail merge document. Word cannot find its data
source, C:\..\My Data Sources\Members.mdb.

(Find Data Source...) (Options...)

If I click on Options..., it offers to "Remove Data/Header Source" or
"Remove All Merge Info".

Neither of those is quite what I want to do.

My document is creating membership cards for my club and I want the document
to point to a data source whose name includes the current year. For example,
in 2006, I want the document to open a table called Members2006 in my data
source. But in 2007, I want the document to open a table called Members2007.
And so on.

Is that possible? If so, how do I do modify my document to do that? I'm
willing to use a macro if I can't do it any other way.
 
Graham has dealt with the first issue; for the second, the only solution I
know of is to update the data source as needed. That is, for now, you use
the Open Data Source button on the Mail Merge toolbar to link the document
with Members2006. Next year, you open the document normally, then use Open
Data Source to change the source to Members2007. FWIW, the dialog you're
getting should give you the option of finding a new data source, but if it
doesn't, then you just have to remove the current one and then open a new
one.

Alternatively, you call the data source Members and link that to your
document. At the end of the year, you archive that file as Members2006 and
create a new Members data source that will automatically be linked to your
mail merge main document because Word is looking just at the file name, not
whether it's the same file of that name that it looked for in the past.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
 
I don't really object to that message; I was really just leading up to the
second issue: how do I change which data source gets opened? Somewhere, my
document must be storing an association with that data source and I assume
there is some way to change that association to a different data source.
 
Okay, I can live with those solutions.

That's essentially why I want to add a comment to the document: I want to
advise the user on precisely what they'll have to do next year when the
generate the next batch of cards. That user will likely be me and I won't
remember what I need to do by next week, let alone a year from now. If the
user is someone else, that makes the comment even more necessary ;-)

--
Rhino

Suzanne S. Barnhill said:
Graham has dealt with the first issue; for the second, the only solution I
know of is to update the data source as needed. That is, for now, you use
the Open Data Source button on the Mail Merge toolbar to link the document
with Members2006. Next year, you open the document normally, then use Open
Data Source to change the source to Members2007. FWIW, the dialog you're
getting should give you the option of finding a new data source, but if it
doesn't, then you just have to remove the current one and then open a new
one.

Alternatively, you call the data source Members and link that to your
document. At the end of the year, you archive that file as Members2006 and
create a new Members data source that will automatically be linked to your
mail merge main document because Word is looking just at the file name,
not
whether it's the same file of that name that it looked for in the past.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup
so
all may benefit.
Click to expand...
 
If you're pretty sure the user will be you, then here's what I find helpful.
Put your instructions to yourself in the Comments field of File |
Properties. If you make a habit of doing this, you'll remember to look
there.

This is actually an idea that I ought to use more often; at present I use it
only to indicate "#10" or "Label" for a client who has a tendency to give me
letters to type and then not get around to sending them till days later.
Since I don't usually print the envelope or label until I print the final
copy of the letter (by which time I've given him back the draft on which he
had written the #10 or Label notation), this helps me remember which to
print.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

Rhino said:
Okay, I can live with those solutions.

That's essentially why I want to add a comment to the document: I want to
advise the user on precisely what they'll have to do next year when the
generate the next batch of cards. That user will likely be me and I won't
remember what I need to do by next week, let alone a year from now. If the
user is someone else, that makes the comment even more necessary ;-)
Click to expand...
 
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