mail merge from Word

  • Thread starter Thread starter skeddy
  • Start date Start date
S

skeddy

I have Word 2002 SP3 and Outlook 2002 SP3. In Outlook I use Word to
compose emails. In the past I have done a mail merge between them
without any problem. All of a sudden it doesn't seem to work right
anymore.

I set up a document in Word with a separate data source. When it is
ready to be mailed, I click on Merge to Email. The "To" field is
assigned the email addresses and I fill in the subject line. After I
click OK, the status line tells me it is merging the records and it
cycles through all of them.


However, when I bring in to focus the Outlook window, nothing is
happening. The messages do not go in to the Outbox, nor do they show
in the Sent Items folder. This problem only occurs when I try to send
it in HTML format. If I do it as plain text, it works fine, just as
it
always has.


Why doesn't Word send the messages to Outlook?
 
Not enough information. Clarify your steps and what you mean by "separate
data store."
Start your merge from Outlook next time.
 
Not enough information. Clarify your steps and what you mean by "separate
data store."
Start your merge from Outlook next time.
--
Russ Valentine








- Show quoted text -
Click to expand...

My data source is an Excel file. It has a column for the name of the
recipients and a column for their email address. I open Word and type
the text of the letter. Then on the mail merge toolbar I click on
"Open Data Source" and browse to the Excel file. At the beginning of
the letter I type "Dear". Then I click "Insert Merge Fields" and
select the column of the Excel file that has the names of the
recipients. Everything looks good up to this point.

Then on the merge toolbar I click on "Merge to email". Under Message
options there is a field called "To". For the dropdown arrow I select
the Excel column that contains the email address of the recipients. I
also enter a subject. If I leave the mail format as HTML, I have
problems. If I change it to Plain, it works fine like it always has.
Under Send records, I leave the radio button selected to "All".

When I click "OK", the status bar tells me "Word is merging record ..."
and it goes through all the records. The problem is that the emails
seem to just disappear into thin air. In the past, they always went to
my Outbox in Outlook. And then Outlook would send them one by one.
Now, however, they do not show up anywhere in Outlook.

I can't see how to start the merge from Outlook. If I open a new
email, the mail merge toolbar is there, but everything is grayed out.
Also, under the Tools menu/Letters and Mailings, all the options are
grayed out. Besides, it used to work fine the way I described it
above.

Thank you very much for helping me figure out what is going wrong.
 
Very strange. HTML is actually the preferred format. It's plain text that
doesn't work in Office 2002.
Symptoms suggest that your email addresses in Excel are not valid or not
being reconciled by Outlook. That's why it might work better to do your
merge from Outlook so that both Word and Outlook are invoked for a merge to
email before you actually hit Send. Use Tools > Mail Merge from the Contacts
Folder.
 
Very strange. HTML is actually the preferred format. It's plain text that
doesn't work in Office 2002.
Symptoms suggest that your email addresses in Excel are not valid or not
being reconciled by Outlook. That's why it might work better to do your
merge from Outlook so that both Word and Outlook are invoked for a merge to
email before you actually hit Send. Use Tools > Mail Merge from the Contacts
Folder.
--
Russ Valentine










- Show quoted text -
Click to expand...

Someone else suggested that I use Help|Detect and Repair in Outlook.
That did the trick. I appreciate your help.
 
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