Excel-2007: Mail merge problem

Hello,
For several years I am using merge documents in Word and Excel.
The Excel files are the result of calculations in SPSS.

Fortunately, SPSS has since a few years an export function of SPSS files to
specific Excel-97 format. As long as I have used Word/Excel-2003, there were
no problems.

But now .... we switched to Office 2007. Merging the Excelsheet (created
with SPSS) with Word gives now complications:
1. Formerly my Word document was linked to the Excel file as:
"MS Excel Worksheet via DDE (*. xls)".
This gives problems:
2. Variant of the Excel File: "OLE DB Database Files" still seems to work
but now every time I have an Excel file, that's created in SPSS, an extra
conversion in Excel is necessary from the xls-file towards and xlsx-file.

SPECIFIC QUESTIONS:
a. How can I fix this problem in Office 2007 ?
SPSS cannot yet convert to Office 2007 format
b. What are the differences between the formats:
(1) "OLE DB database file,
(2) "Worksheet via DDE" and
(3) "Excel files via ODBC"?

Thank you in advance for your help.
Guus

Word 2007 doesn't generally work as well with DDE as previous versions,
particularly if the .xls files are located on network drives.

However, you should still be able to use your .xls files using either
DDE or OLE DB (I'd keep away from ODBC if possible). You should not have
to convert them to .xlsx.

You still need to change Word settings (Word-Office Button-Word
Options-Advanced-General, then something like "Confirm file format
conversions at open". You should then see the additional dialog box that
you had with Word 2003. For .xls files, I would expect the DDE and OLE
DB options to be shown, and an ODBC option if there is a suitable driver
on your system. (e.g. you may not see this if you are using Vista-64).
But for .xlsx files, you will only see the OLE DB option until you check
the "Show all" box. Then /every/ method is listed and you have to look
down to find the one that specifies both DDE and Excel.

There is more info. about DDE, ODBC and OLE DB at

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk/t0003b.htm

but I think it is a bit out of date.

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

Guus wrote:
Hello,
For several years I am using merge documents in Word and Excel.
The Excel files are the result of calculations in SPSS.

Fortunately, SPSS has since a few years an export function of SPSS files to
specific Excel-97 format. As long as I have used Word/Excel-2003, there were
no problems.

But now .... we switched to Office 2007. Merging the Excelsheet (created
with SPSS) with Word gives now complications:
1. Formerly my Word document was linked to the Excel file as:
"MS Excel Worksheet via DDE (*. xls)".
This gives problems:
2. Variant of the Excel File: "OLE DB Database Files" still seems to work
but now every time I have an Excel file, that's created in SPSS, an extra
conversion in Excel is necessary from the xls-file towards and xlsx-file.

SPECIFIC QUESTIONS:
a. How can I fix this problem in Office 2007 ?
SPSS cannot yet convert to Office 2007 format
b. What are the differences between the formats:
(1) "OLE DB database file,
(2) "Worksheet via DDE" and
(3) "Excel files via ODBC"?

Thank you in advance for your help.
Guus