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#1
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Word cannot find data source problem
Hi,
I'm having a problem getting Word to remember the link to its data source for some files. It continually asks to locate the data source and if you point it to the file it just continually loops back and asks for the file location again. If you tell it "No" on the SQL check dialog, the file opens and I can go to "Open Data Source" and point to the file that way. The merge document is a one page letter. The data is a simple csv file with only 10 fields. I've tried putting the csv file in the My Data Sources folder and that doesn't fix it. I've tried using the registry setting to skip the SQL check, but that means I end up in the "Locate Data Source" loop with no way of opening the file at all. The closest thing I've come up with that sort of gets me to a work around is that some of the field headings have an underscore in them: First_Name, Last_Name, Address_1, etc. However, if I make a new csv file in notepad and make the names with an _, it works fine. But then I get the second clue. If I click on Tools | Letters and Mailings | Mail Merge to get the Mail Merge side bar, step 3 has some weirdness. On the csv file that does not work, the source that the recipients are currently selected from appears as: [:\foldername\source.cs] in "source.csv" If I make a csv file from scratch and do not use any underscores, that line becomes just: "test.csv" But as soon as I change a field name in the working csv file to contain and underscore it changes to: [:\foldername\test.cs] in "test.csv" It still works, probably because somewhere in the file it remembers that it used to work before I changed the file name, but who knows at this point. Has anyone else run into something similar or know of a fix? Thanks! |
#2
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Word cannot find data source problem
Well spotted on the incorrect display of the file path name, but
unfortunately as far as I know it is a red herring and does not indicate anything other than a fault in the display. Further, whether the Mailmerge task pane displays the "long" data source location details or just the short file name depends on whether the data source is in what Word thinks is the "active" folder" (I think) - i.e. it is likely to change to that folder if you create a test .csv in Word and save it. However, things are complicated by the fact that Word has a number of different mechanisms for opening a .tx or .csv type file and chooses the mechanism depending on the file content (I think). I don't work for Microsoft or have have access to the source code, so I have to guess, but in Word 2002(XP) and 2003, I believe Word will either use Word's built-in text converter to read the file, or OLE DB. If it uses OLE DB, it generates a "connection string" which contains the path name of the folder containing the file. However, Word does not save the whole connection string (max 255 characters I think) and can truncate the pathname, so when you close and re-open the When you close the mail merge main document and re-open it, Word can't find the file.I'm not so sure that happens when Word opens the file using its converter. Anyway, if you try putting the file in a folder with a short pathname I think it will always work. However, there could also be problems if Word does not recognise the character encoding of your .csv file correctly - but let's leave that for now. Peter Jamieson wrote in message ps.com... Hi, I'm having a problem getting Word to remember the link to its data source for some files. It continually asks to locate the data source and if you point it to the file it just continually loops back and asks for the file location again. If you tell it "No" on the SQL check dialog, the file opens and I can go to "Open Data Source" and point to the file that way. The merge document is a one page letter. The data is a simple csv file with only 10 fields. I've tried putting the csv file in the My Data Sources folder and that doesn't fix it. I've tried using the registry setting to skip the SQL check, but that means I end up in the "Locate Data Source" loop with no way of opening the file at all. The closest thing I've come up with that sort of gets me to a work around is that some of the field headings have an underscore in them: First_Name, Last_Name, Address_1, etc. However, if I make a new csv file in notepad and make the names with an _, it works fine. But then I get the second clue. If I click on Tools | Letters and Mailings | Mail Merge to get the Mail Merge side bar, step 3 has some weirdness. On the csv file that does not work, the source that the recipients are currently selected from appears as: [:\foldername\source.cs] in "source.csv" If I make a csv file from scratch and do not use any underscores, that line becomes just: "test.csv" But as soon as I change a field name in the working csv file to contain and underscore it changes to: [:\foldername\test.cs] in "test.csv" It still works, probably because somewhere in the file it remembers that it used to work before I changed the file name, but who knows at this point. Has anyone else run into something similar or know of a fix? Thanks! |
#3
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Word cannot find data source problem
I'm having a very similar problem.
In Word 2003 (on a Windows 2003 network) we cannot save word merge files with a user -assigned data source. One of the following will happen: 1. Our Word Merge templates (the 'letter' part of the file) are copied into a client directory, and staff edits the file to 'link' to the new data source (text file with CSV). Staff saves the document. The next time the staff opens the document Word responds with 'Opening this document will run the following SQL Command' - as we would expect - but then we get a message 'Word cannot find its data source ' - displaying the name of the file we linked in - which we know is there - so staff selects 'Find Data Source' and re-opens the file. WE GET THE SAME MESSAGE - Word cannot find its data source. The only option is to remove the headers. But even after we do that, Word Merge cannot find the data source. We cannot save the Word merge file with the correct data source attached. Here's the strange part. All our word files are saved to the network - the templates and the data source. If I attached a data source that's on my local drive to the word file, there is no problem - the merge file with the new data source saves fine. It's as if the merge file does not want a data source that's on a network drive - or is it the path? "Peter Jamieson" wrote: Well spotted on the incorrect display of the file path name, but unfortunately as far as I know it is a red herring and does not indicate anything other than a fault in the display. Further, whether the Mailmerge task pane displays the "long" data source location details or just the short file name depends on whether the data source is in what Word thinks is the "active" folder" (I think) - i.e. it is likely to change to that folder if you create a test .csv in Word and save it. However, things are complicated by the fact that Word has a number of different mechanisms for opening a .tx or .csv type file and chooses the mechanism depending on the file content (I think). I don't work for Microsoft or have have access to the source code, so I have to guess, but in Word 2002(XP) and 2003, I believe Word will either use Word's built-in text converter to read the file, or OLE DB. If it uses OLE DB, it generates a "connection string" which contains the path name of the folder containing the file. However, Word does not save the whole connection string (max 255 characters I think) and can truncate the pathname, so when you close and re-open the When you close the mail merge main document and re-open it, Word can't find the file.I'm not so sure that happens when Word opens the file using its converter. Anyway, if you try putting the file in a folder with a short pathname I think it will always work. However, there could also be problems if Word does not recognise the character encoding of your .csv file correctly - but let's leave that for now. Peter Jamieson wrote in message ps.com... Hi, I'm having a problem getting Word to remember the link to its data source for some files. It continually asks to locate the data source and if you point it to the file it just continually loops back and asks for the file location again. If you tell it "No" on the SQL check dialog, the file opens and I can go to "Open Data Source" and point to the file that way. The merge document is a one page letter. The data is a simple csv file with only 10 fields. I've tried putting the csv file in the My Data Sources folder and that doesn't fix it. I've tried using the registry setting to skip the SQL check, but that means I end up in the "Locate Data Source" loop with no way of opening the file at all. The closest thing I've come up with that sort of gets me to a work around is that some of the field headings have an underscore in them: First_Name, Last_Name, Address_1, etc. However, if I make a new csv file in notepad and make the names with an _, it works fine. But then I get the second clue. If I click on Tools | Letters and Mailings | Mail Merge to get the Mail Merge side bar, step 3 has some weirdness. On the csv file that does not work, the source that the recipients are currently selected from appears as: [:\foldername\source.cs] in "source.csv" If I make a csv file from scratch and do not use any underscores, that line becomes just: "test.csv" But as soon as I change a field name in the working csv file to contain and underscore it changes to: [:\foldername\test.cs] in "test.csv" It still works, probably because somewhere in the file it remembers that it used to work before I changed the file name, but who knows at this point. Has anyone else run into something similar or know of a fix? Thanks! |
#4
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Word cannot find data source problem
I just did some simple tests here and was able to re-open when both Mail
merge Main Document and data source were on the same network drive, i.e. suggesting that the problem does not occur solely because it's a netwrok drive (it worked whether I connected using E DB or the internal text file converter). A few questions: a. are your mail merge document and data source in the same network folder? b. how long is the pathname of the data source? e.g. longer or shorter than the pathname you used when testing on a local drive? - the total length consists of all the charaters in \\computername\sharename\folders`filename.ext c. have any sorts or filters been applied to the data? -- Peter Jamieson http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk "Jane" wrote in message ... I'm having a very similar problem. In Word 2003 (on a Windows 2003 network) we cannot save word merge files with a user -assigned data source. One of the following will happen: 1. Our Word Merge templates (the 'letter' part of the file) are copied into a client directory, and staff edits the file to 'link' to the new data source (text file with CSV). Staff saves the document. The next time the staff opens the document Word responds with 'Opening this document will run the following SQL Command' - as we would expect - but then we get a message 'Word cannot find its data source ' - displaying the name of the file we linked in - which we know is there - so staff selects 'Find Data Source' and re-opens the file. WE GET THE SAME MESSAGE - Word cannot find its data source. The only option is to remove the headers. But even after we do that, Word Merge cannot find the data source. We cannot save the Word merge file with the correct data source attached. Here's the strange part. All our word files are saved to the network - the templates and the data source. If I attached a data source that's on my local drive to the word file, there is no problem - the merge file with the new data source saves fine. It's as if the merge file does not want a data source that's on a network drive - or is it the path? "Peter Jamieson" wrote: Well spotted on the incorrect display of the file path name, but unfortunately as far as I know it is a red herring and does not indicate anything other than a fault in the display. Further, whether the Mailmerge task pane displays the "long" data source location details or just the short file name depends on whether the data source is in what Word thinks is the "active" folder" (I think) - i.e. it is likely to change to that folder if you create a test .csv in Word and save it. However, things are complicated by the fact that Word has a number of different mechanisms for opening a .tx or .csv type file and chooses the mechanism depending on the file content (I think). I don't work for Microsoft or have have access to the source code, so I have to guess, but in Word 2002(XP) and 2003, I believe Word will either use Word's built-in text converter to read the file, or OLE DB. If it uses OLE DB, it generates a "connection string" which contains the path name of the folder containing the file. However, Word does not save the whole connection string (max 255 characters I think) and can truncate the pathname, so when you close and re-open the When you close the mail merge main document and re-open it, Word can't find the file.I'm not so sure that happens when Word opens the file using its converter. Anyway, if you try putting the file in a folder with a short pathname I think it will always work. However, there could also be problems if Word does not recognise the character encoding of your .csv file correctly - but let's leave that for now. Peter Jamieson wrote in message ps.com... Hi, I'm having a problem getting Word to remember the link to its data source for some files. It continually asks to locate the data source and if you point it to the file it just continually loops back and asks for the file location again. If you tell it "No" on the SQL check dialog, the file opens and I can go to "Open Data Source" and point to the file that way. The merge document is a one page letter. The data is a simple csv file with only 10 fields. I've tried putting the csv file in the My Data Sources folder and that doesn't fix it. I've tried using the registry setting to skip the SQL check, but that means I end up in the "Locate Data Source" loop with no way of opening the file at all. The closest thing I've come up with that sort of gets me to a work around is that some of the field headings have an underscore in them: First_Name, Last_Name, Address_1, etc. However, if I make a new csv file in notepad and make the names with an _, it works fine. But then I get the second clue. If I click on Tools | Letters and Mailings | Mail Merge to get the Mail Merge side bar, step 3 has some weirdness. On the csv file that does not work, the source that the recipients are currently selected from appears as: [:\foldername\source.cs] in "source.csv" If I make a csv file from scratch and do not use any underscores, that line becomes just: "test.csv" But as soon as I change a field name in the working csv file to contain and underscore it changes to: [:\foldername\test.cs] in "test.csv" It still works, probably because somewhere in the file it remembers that it used to work before I changed the file name, but who knows at this point. Has anyone else run into something similar or know of a fix? Thanks! |
#5
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Word cannot find data source problem
1. The two files are in the same folder on a network drive.
2. the path to the data source is longish: \\server\company\word\mhl clients\h\hollowayjane\mailmerge.txt when I tested on the local drive it was short: c:\cis\mailmerge.txt 3. there are no filters or sorts "Peter Jamieson" wrote: I just did some simple tests here and was able to re-open when both Mail merge Main Document and data source were on the same network drive, i.e. suggesting that the problem does not occur solely because it's a netwrok drive (it worked whether I connected using E DB or the internal text file converter). A few questions: a. are your mail merge document and data source in the same network folder? b. how long is the pathname of the data source? e.g. longer or shorter than the pathname you used when testing on a local drive? - the total length consists of all the charaters in \\computername\sharename\folders`filename.ext c. have any sorts or filters been applied to the data? -- Peter Jamieson http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk "Jane" wrote in message ... I'm having a very similar problem. In Word 2003 (on a Windows 2003 network) we cannot save word merge files with a user -assigned data source. One of the following will happen: 1. Our Word Merge templates (the 'letter' part of the file) are copied into a client directory, and staff edits the file to 'link' to the new data source (text file with CSV). Staff saves the document. The next time the staff opens the document Word responds with 'Opening this document will run the following SQL Command' - as we would expect - but then we get a message 'Word cannot find its data source ' - displaying the name of the file we linked in - which we know is there - so staff selects 'Find Data Source' and re-opens the file. WE GET THE SAME MESSAGE - Word cannot find its data source. The only option is to remove the headers. But even after we do that, Word Merge cannot find the data source. We cannot save the Word merge file with the correct data source attached. Here's the strange part. All our word files are saved to the network - the templates and the data source. If I attached a data source that's on my local drive to the word file, there is no problem - the merge file with the new data source saves fine. It's as if the merge file does not want a data source that's on a network drive - or is it the path? "Peter Jamieson" wrote: Well spotted on the incorrect display of the file path name, but unfortunately as far as I know it is a red herring and does not indicate anything other than a fault in the display. Further, whether the Mailmerge task pane displays the "long" data source location details or just the short file name depends on whether the data source is in what Word thinks is the "active" folder" (I think) - i.e. it is likely to change to that folder if you create a test .csv in Word and save it. However, things are complicated by the fact that Word has a number of different mechanisms for opening a .tx or .csv type file and chooses the mechanism depending on the file content (I think). I don't work for Microsoft or have have access to the source code, so I have to guess, but in Word 2002(XP) and 2003, I believe Word will either use Word's built-in text converter to read the file, or OLE DB. If it uses OLE DB, it generates a "connection string" which contains the path name of the folder containing the file. However, Word does not save the whole connection string (max 255 characters I think) and can truncate the pathname, so when you close and re-open the When you close the mail merge main document and re-open it, Word can't find the file.I'm not so sure that happens when Word opens the file using its converter. Anyway, if you try putting the file in a folder with a short pathname I think it will always work. However, there could also be problems if Word does not recognise the character encoding of your .csv file correctly - but let's leave that for now. Peter Jamieson wrote in message ps.com... Hi, I'm having a problem getting Word to remember the link to its data source for some files. It continually asks to locate the data source and if you point it to the file it just continually loops back and asks for the file location again. If you tell it "No" on the SQL check dialog, the file opens and I can go to "Open Data Source" and point to the file that way. The merge document is a one page letter. The data is a simple csv file with only 10 fields. I've tried putting the csv file in the My Data Sources folder and that doesn't fix it. I've tried using the registry setting to skip the SQL check, but that means I end up in the "Locate Data Source" loop with no way of opening the file at all. The closest thing I've come up with that sort of gets me to a work around is that some of the field headings have an underscore in them: First_Name, Last_Name, Address_1, etc. However, if I make a new csv file in notepad and make the names with an _, it works fine. But then I get the second clue. If I click on Tools | Letters and Mailings | Mail Merge to get the Mail Merge side bar, step 3 has some weirdness. On the csv file that does not work, the source that the recipients are currently selected from appears as: [:\foldername\source.cs] in "source.csv" If I make a csv file from scratch and do not use any underscores, that line becomes just: "test.csv" But as soon as I change a field name in the working csv file to contain and underscore it changes to: [:\foldername\test.cs] in "test.csv" It still works, probably because somewhere in the file it remembers that it used to work before I changed the file name, but who knows at this point. Has anyone else run into something similar or know of a fix? Thanks! |
#6
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Word cannot find data source problem
OK, I checked again with a similar length pathname and it does not appear to
be long enough to cause problems here. Which leaves me a bit stuck. If you are able to test the same document and mail merge source on a much shorter network path and it still does not work, I think that would help establish that it is probably something to do with the network setup. I would be looking at the permissions for the /share/ and for the underlying folder - e.g. you may need to be able to read and write to both the share and the folder (even though mailmerge typically only reads the data source). -- Peter Jamieson http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk "Jane" wrote in message ... 1. The two files are in the same folder on a network drive. 2. the path to the data source is longish: \\server\company\word\mhl clients\h\hollowayjane\mailmerge.txt when I tested on the local drive it was short: c:\cis\mailmerge.txt 3. there are no filters or sorts "Peter Jamieson" wrote: I just did some simple tests here and was able to re-open when both Mail merge Main Document and data source were on the same network drive, i.e. suggesting that the problem does not occur solely because it's a netwrok drive (it worked whether I connected using E DB or the internal text file converter). A few questions: a. are your mail merge document and data source in the same network folder? b. how long is the pathname of the data source? e.g. longer or shorter than the pathname you used when testing on a local drive? - the total length consists of all the charaters in \\computername\sharename\folders`filename.ext c. have any sorts or filters been applied to the data? -- Peter Jamieson http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk "Jane" wrote in message ... I'm having a very similar problem. In Word 2003 (on a Windows 2003 network) we cannot save word merge files with a user -assigned data source. One of the following will happen: 1. Our Word Merge templates (the 'letter' part of the file) are copied into a client directory, and staff edits the file to 'link' to the new data source (text file with CSV). Staff saves the document. The next time the staff opens the document Word responds with 'Opening this document will run the following SQL Command' - as we would expect - but then we get a message 'Word cannot find its data source ' - displaying the name of the file we linked in - which we know is there - so staff selects 'Find Data Source' and re-opens the file. WE GET THE SAME MESSAGE - Word cannot find its data source. The only option is to remove the headers. But even after we do that, Word Merge cannot find the data source. We cannot save the Word merge file with the correct data source attached. Here's the strange part. All our word files are saved to the network - the templates and the data source. If I attached a data source that's on my local drive to the word file, there is no problem - the merge file with the new data source saves fine. It's as if the merge file does not want a data source that's on a network drive - or is it the path? "Peter Jamieson" wrote: Well spotted on the incorrect display of the file path name, but unfortunately as far as I know it is a red herring and does not indicate anything other than a fault in the display. Further, whether the Mailmerge task pane displays the "long" data source location details or just the short file name depends on whether the data source is in what Word thinks is the "active" folder" (I think) - i.e. it is likely to change to that folder if you create a test .csv in Word and save it. However, things are complicated by the fact that Word has a number of different mechanisms for opening a .tx or .csv type file and chooses the mechanism depending on the file content (I think). I don't work for Microsoft or have have access to the source code, so I have to guess, but in Word 2002(XP) and 2003, I believe Word will either use Word's built-in text converter to read the file, or OLE DB. If it uses OLE DB, it generates a "connection string" which contains the path name of the folder containing the file. However, Word does not save the whole connection string (max 255 characters I think) and can truncate the pathname, so when you close and re-open the When you close the mail merge main document and re-open it, Word can't find the file.I'm not so sure that happens when Word opens the file using its converter. Anyway, if you try putting the file in a folder with a short pathname I think it will always work. However, there could also be problems if Word does not recognise the character encoding of your .csv file correctly - but let's leave that for now. Peter Jamieson wrote in message ps.com... Hi, I'm having a problem getting Word to remember the link to its data source for some files. It continually asks to locate the data source and if you point it to the file it just continually loops back and asks for the file location again. If you tell it "No" on the SQL check dialog, the file opens and I can go to "Open Data Source" and point to the file that way. The merge document is a one page letter. The data is a simple csv file with only 10 fields. I've tried putting the csv file in the My Data Sources folder and that doesn't fix it. I've tried using the registry setting to skip the SQL check, but that means I end up in the "Locate Data Source" loop with no way of opening the file at all. The closest thing I've come up with that sort of gets me to a work around is that some of the field headings have an underscore in them: First_Name, Last_Name, Address_1, etc. However, if I make a new csv file in notepad and make the names with an _, it works fine. But then I get the second clue. If I click on Tools | Letters and Mailings | Mail Merge to get the Mail Merge side bar, step 3 has some weirdness. On the csv file that does not work, the source that the recipients are currently selected from appears as: [:\foldername\source.cs] in "source.csv" If I make a csv file from scratch and do not use any underscores, that line becomes just: "test.csv" But as soon as I change a field name in the working csv file to contain and underscore it changes to: [:\foldername\test.cs] in "test.csv" It still works, probably because somewhere in the file it remembers that it used to work before I changed the file name, but who knows at this point. Has anyone else run into something similar or know of a fix? Thanks! |
#7
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Word cannot find data source problem
I'll try that. I'll check into the permissions on network drives too. If
I have to I'll call Microsoft. Thanks for your help. "Peter Jamieson" wrote: OK, I checked again with a similar length pathname and it does not appear to be long enough to cause problems here. Which leaves me a bit stuck. If you are able to test the same document and mail merge source on a much shorter network path and it still does not work, I think that would help establish that it is probably something to do with the network setup. I would be looking at the permissions for the /share/ and for the underlying folder - e.g. you may need to be able to read and write to both the share and the folder (even though mailmerge typically only reads the data source). -- Peter Jamieson http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk "Jane" wrote in message ... 1. The two files are in the same folder on a network drive. 2. the path to the data source is longish: \\server\company\word\mhl clients\h\hollowayjane\mailmerge.txt when I tested on the local drive it was short: c:\cis\mailmerge.txt 3. there are no filters or sorts "Peter Jamieson" wrote: I just did some simple tests here and was able to re-open when both Mail merge Main Document and data source were on the same network drive, i.e. suggesting that the problem does not occur solely because it's a netwrok drive (it worked whether I connected using E DB or the internal text file converter). A few questions: a. are your mail merge document and data source in the same network folder? b. how long is the pathname of the data source? e.g. longer or shorter than the pathname you used when testing on a local drive? - the total length consists of all the charaters in \\computername\sharename\folders`filename.ext c. have any sorts or filters been applied to the data? -- Peter Jamieson http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk "Jane" wrote in message ... I'm having a very similar problem. In Word 2003 (on a Windows 2003 network) we cannot save word merge files with a user -assigned data source. One of the following will happen: 1. Our Word Merge templates (the 'letter' part of the file) are copied into a client directory, and staff edits the file to 'link' to the new data source (text file with CSV). Staff saves the document. The next time the staff opens the document Word responds with 'Opening this document will run the following SQL Command' - as we would expect - but then we get a message 'Word cannot find its data source ' - displaying the name of the file we linked in - which we know is there - so staff selects 'Find Data Source' and re-opens the file. WE GET THE SAME MESSAGE - Word cannot find its data source. The only option is to remove the headers. But even after we do that, Word Merge cannot find the data source. We cannot save the Word merge file with the correct data source attached. Here's the strange part. All our word files are saved to the network - the templates and the data source. If I attached a data source that's on my local drive to the word file, there is no problem - the merge file with the new data source saves fine. It's as if the merge file does not want a data source that's on a network drive - or is it the path? "Peter Jamieson" wrote: Well spotted on the incorrect display of the file path name, but unfortunately as far as I know it is a red herring and does not indicate anything other than a fault in the display. Further, whether the Mailmerge task pane displays the "long" data source location details or just the short file name depends on whether the data source is in what Word thinks is the "active" folder" (I think) - i.e. it is likely to change to that folder if you create a test .csv in Word and save it. However, things are complicated by the fact that Word has a number of different mechanisms for opening a .tx or .csv type file and chooses the mechanism depending on the file content (I think). I don't work for Microsoft or have have access to the source code, so I have to guess, but in Word 2002(XP) and 2003, I believe Word will either use Word's built-in text converter to read the file, or OLE DB. If it uses OLE DB, it generates a "connection string" which contains the path name of the folder containing the file. However, Word does not save the whole connection string (max 255 characters I think) and can truncate the pathname, so when you close and re-open the When you close the mail merge main document and re-open it, Word can't find the file.I'm not so sure that happens when Word opens the file using its converter. Anyway, if you try putting the file in a folder with a short pathname I think it will always work. However, there could also be problems if Word does not recognise the character encoding of your .csv file correctly - but let's leave that for now. Peter Jamieson wrote in message ps.com... Hi, I'm having a problem getting Word to remember the link to its data source for some files. It continually asks to locate the data source and if you point it to the file it just continually loops back and asks for the file location again. If you tell it "No" on the SQL check dialog, the file opens and I can go to "Open Data Source" and point to the file that way. The merge document is a one page letter. The data is a simple csv file with only 10 fields. I've tried putting the csv file in the My Data Sources folder and that doesn't fix it. I've tried using the registry setting to skip the SQL check, but that means I end up in the "Locate Data Source" loop with no way of opening the file at all. The closest thing I've come up with that sort of gets me to a work around is that some of the field headings have an underscore in them: First_Name, Last_Name, Address_1, etc. However, if I make a new csv file in notepad and make the names with an _, it works fine. But then I get the second clue. If I click on Tools | Letters and Mailings | Mail Merge to get the Mail Merge side bar, step 3 has some weirdness. On the csv file that does not work, the source that the recipients are currently selected from appears as: [:\foldername\source.cs] in "source.csv" If I make a csv file from scratch and do not use any underscores, that line becomes just: "test.csv" But as soon as I change a field name in the working csv file to contain and underscore it changes to: [:\foldername\test.cs] in "test.csv" It still works, probably because somewhere in the file it remembers that it used to work before I changed the file name, but who knows at this point. Has anyone else run into something similar or know of a fix? Thanks! |
#8
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Word cannot find data source problem
One other thing that may be worth checking is that the document is not
connected to a template that also has a dtaa source (maybe the same one) attached. -- Peter Jamieson http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk "Jane" wrote in message ... I'll try that. I'll check into the permissions on network drives too. If I have to I'll call Microsoft. Thanks for your help. "Peter Jamieson" wrote: OK, I checked again with a similar length pathname and it does not appear to be long enough to cause problems here. Which leaves me a bit stuck. If you are able to test the same document and mail merge source on a much shorter network path and it still does not work, I think that would help establish that it is probably something to do with the network setup. I would be looking at the permissions for the /share/ and for the underlying folder - e.g. you may need to be able to read and write to both the share and the folder (even though mailmerge typically only reads the data source). -- Peter Jamieson http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk "Jane" wrote in message ... 1. The two files are in the same folder on a network drive. 2. the path to the data source is longish: \\server\company\word\mhl clients\h\hollowayjane\mailmerge.txt when I tested on the local drive it was short: c:\cis\mailmerge.txt 3. there are no filters or sorts "Peter Jamieson" wrote: I just did some simple tests here and was able to re-open when both merge Main Document and data source were on the same network drive, i.e. suggesting that the problem does not occur solely because it's a netwrok drive (it worked whether I connected using E DB or the internal text file converter). A few questions: a. are your mail merge document and data source in the same network folder? b. how long is the pathname of the data source? e.g. longer or shorter than the pathname you used when testing on a local drive? - the total length consists of all the charaters in \\computername\sharename\folders`filename.ext c. have any sorts or filters been applied to the data? -- Peter Jamieson http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk "Jane" wrote in message ... I'm having a very similar problem. In Word 2003 (on a Windows 2003 network) we cannot save word merge files with a user -assigned data source. One of the following will happen: 1. Our Word Merge templates (the 'letter' part of the file) are copied into a client directory, and staff edits the file to 'link' to the new data source (text file with CSV). Staff saves the document. The next time the staff opens the document Word responds with 'Opening this document will run the following SQL Command' - as we would expect - but then we get a message 'Word cannot find its data source ' - displaying the name of the file we linked in - which we know is there - so staff selects 'Find Data Source' and re-opens the file. WE GET THE SAME MESSAGE - Word cannot find its data source. The only option is to remove the headers. But even after we do that, Word Merge cannot find the data source. We cannot save the Word merge file with the correct data source attached. Here's the strange part. All our word files are saved to the network - the templates and the data source. If I attached a data source that's on my local drive to the word file, there is no problem - the merge file with the new data source saves fine. It's as if the merge file does not want a data source that's on a network drive - or is it the path? "Peter Jamieson" wrote: Well spotted on the incorrect display of the file path name, but unfortunately as far as I know it is a red herring and does not indicate anything other than a fault in the display. Further, whether the Mailmerge task pane displays the "long" data source location details or just the short file name depends on whether the data source is in what Word thinks is the "active" folder" (I think) - i.e. it is likely to change to that folder if you create a test .csv in Word and save it. However, things are complicated by the fact that Word has a number of different mechanisms for opening a .tx or .csv type file and chooses the mechanism depending on the file content (I think). I don't work for Microsoft or have have access to the source code, so I have to guess, but in Word 2002(XP) and 2003, I believe Word will either use Word's built-in text converter to read the file, or OLE DB. If it uses OLE DB, it generates a "connection string" which contains the path name of the folder containing the file. However, Word does not save the whole connection string (max 255 characters I think) and can truncate the pathname, so when you close and re-open the When you close the mail merge main document and re-open it, Word can't find the file.I'm not so sure that happens when Word opens the file using its converter. Anyway, if you try putting the file in a folder with a short pathname I think it will always work. However, there could also be problems if Word does not recognise the character encoding of your .csv file correctly - but let's leave that for now. Peter Jamieson wrote in message ps.com... Hi, I'm having a problem getting Word to remember the link to its data source for some files. It continually asks to locate the data source and if you point it to the file it just continually loops back and asks for the file location again. If you tell it "No" on the SQL check dialog, the file opens and I can go to "Open Data Source" and point to the file that way. The merge document is a one page letter. The data is a simple csv file with only 10 fields. I've tried putting the csv file in the My Data Sources folder and that doesn't fix it. I've tried using the registry setting to skip the SQL check, but that means I end up in the "Locate Data Source" loop with no way of opening the file at all. The closest thing I've come up with that sort of gets me to a work around is that some of the field headings have an underscore in them: First_Name, Last_Name, Address_1, etc. However, if I make a new csv file in notepad and make the names with an _, it works fine. But then I get the second clue. If I click on Tools | Letters and Mailings | Mail Merge to get the Mail Merge side bar, step 3 has some weirdness. On the csv file that does not work, the source that the recipients are currently selected from appears as: [:\foldername\source.cs] in "source.csv" If I make a csv file from scratch and do not use any underscores, that line becomes just: "test.csv" But as soon as I change a field name in the working csv file to contain and underscore it changes to: [:\foldername\test.cs] in "test.csv" It still works, probably because somewhere in the file it remembers that it used to work before I changed the file name, but who knows at this point. Has anyone else run into something similar or know of a fix? Thanks! |
#9
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Word cannot find data source problem
do you mean connected to a .dot file? How would I find out if it is?
"Peter Jamieson" wrote: One other thing that may be worth checking is that the document is not connected to a template that also has a dtaa source (maybe the same one) attached. -- Peter Jamieson http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk "Jane" wrote in message ... I'll try that. I'll check into the permissions on network drives too. If I have to I'll call Microsoft. Thanks for your help. "Peter Jamieson" wrote: OK, I checked again with a similar length pathname and it does not appear to be long enough to cause problems here. Which leaves me a bit stuck. If you are able to test the same document and mail merge source on a much shorter network path and it still does not work, I think that would help establish that it is probably something to do with the network setup. I would be looking at the permissions for the /share/ and for the underlying folder - e.g. you may need to be able to read and write to both the share and the folder (even though mailmerge typically only reads the data source). -- Peter Jamieson http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk "Jane" wrote in message ... 1. The two files are in the same folder on a network drive. 2. the path to the data source is longish: \\server\company\word\mhl clients\h\hollowayjane\mailmerge.txt when I tested on the local drive it was short: c:\cis\mailmerge.txt 3. there are no filters or sorts "Peter Jamieson" wrote: I just did some simple tests here and was able to re-open when both merge Main Document and data source were on the same network drive, i.e. suggesting that the problem does not occur solely because it's a netwrok drive (it worked whether I connected using E DB or the internal text file converter). A few questions: a. are your mail merge document and data source in the same network folder? b. how long is the pathname of the data source? e.g. longer or shorter than the pathname you used when testing on a local drive? - the total length consists of all the charaters in \\computername\sharename\folders`filename.ext c. have any sorts or filters been applied to the data? -- Peter Jamieson http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk "Jane" wrote in message ... I'm having a very similar problem. In Word 2003 (on a Windows 2003 network) we cannot save word merge files with a user -assigned data source. One of the following will happen: 1. Our Word Merge templates (the 'letter' part of the file) are copied into a client directory, and staff edits the file to 'link' to the new data source (text file with CSV). Staff saves the document. The next time the staff opens the document Word responds with 'Opening this document will run the following SQL Command' - as we would expect - but then we get a message 'Word cannot find its data source ' - displaying the name of the file we linked in - which we know is there - so staff selects 'Find Data Source' and re-opens the file. WE GET THE SAME MESSAGE - Word cannot find its data source. The only option is to remove the headers. But even after we do that, Word Merge cannot find the data source. We cannot save the Word merge file with the correct data source attached. Here's the strange part. All our word files are saved to the network - the templates and the data source. If I attached a data source that's on my local drive to the word file, there is no problem - the merge file with the new data source saves fine. It's as if the merge file does not want a data source that's on a network drive - or is it the path? "Peter Jamieson" wrote: Well spotted on the incorrect display of the file path name, but unfortunately as far as I know it is a red herring and does not indicate anything other than a fault in the display. Further, whether the Mailmerge task pane displays the "long" data source location details or just the short file name depends on whether the data source is in what Word thinks is the "active" folder" (I think) - i.e. it is likely to change to that folder if you create a test .csv in Word and save it. However, things are complicated by the fact that Word has a number of different mechanisms for opening a .tx or .csv type file and chooses the mechanism depending on the file content (I think). I don't work for Microsoft or have have access to the source code, so I have to guess, but in Word 2002(XP) and 2003, I believe Word will either use Word's built-in text converter to read the file, or OLE DB. If it uses OLE DB, it generates a "connection string" which contains the path name of the folder containing the file. However, Word does not save the whole connection string (max 255 characters I think) and can truncate the pathname, so when you close and re-open the When you close the mail merge main document and re-open it, Word can't find the file.I'm not so sure that happens when Word opens the file using its converter. Anyway, if you try putting the file in a folder with a short pathname I think it will always work. However, there could also be problems if Word does not recognise the character encoding of your .csv file correctly - but let's leave that for now. Peter Jamieson wrote in message ps.com... Hi, I'm having a problem getting Word to remember the link to its data source for some files. It continually asks to locate the data source and if you point it to the file it just continually loops back and asks for the file location again. If you tell it "No" on the SQL check dialog, the file opens and I can go to "Open Data Source" and point to the file that way. The merge document is a one page letter. The data is a simple csv file with only 10 fields. I've tried putting the csv file in the My Data Sources folder and that doesn't fix it. I've tried using the registry setting to skip the SQL check, but that means I end up in the "Locate Data Source" loop with no way of opening the file at all. The closest thing I've come up with that sort of gets me to a work around is that some of the field headings have an underscore in them: First_Name, Last_Name, Address_1, etc. However, if I make a new csv file in notepad and make the names with an _, it works fine. But then I get the second clue. If I click on Tools | Letters and Mailings | Mail Merge to get the Mail Merge side bar, step 3 has some weirdness. On the csv file that does not work, the source that the recipients are currently selected from appears as: [:\foldername\source.cs] in "source.csv" If I make a csv file from scratch and do not use any underscores, that line becomes just: "test.csv" But as soon as I change a field name in the working csv file to contain and underscore it changes to: [:\foldername\test.cs] in "test.csv" It still works, probably because somewhere in the file it remembers that it used to work before I changed the file name, but who knows at this point. Has anyone else run into something similar or know of a fix? Thanks! |
#10
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Word cannot find data source problem
Wen you have managed to open it, use Tools-Addins and Templates to have a
look. -- Peter Jamieson http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk "Jane" wrote in message ... do you mean connected to a .dot file? How would I find out if it is? "Peter Jamieson" wrote: One other thing that may be worth checking is that the document is not connected to a template that also has a dtaa source (maybe the same one) attached. -- Peter Jamieson http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk "Jane" wrote in message ... I'll try that. I'll check into the permissions on network drives too. If I have to I'll call Microsoft. Thanks for your help. "Peter Jamieson" wrote: OK, I checked again with a similar length pathname and it does not appear to be long enough to cause problems here. Which leaves me a bit stuck. If you are able to test the same document and mail merge source on a much shorter network path and it still does not work, I think that would help establish that it is probably something to do with the network setup. I would be looking at the permissions for the /share/ and for the underlying folder - e.g. you may need to be able to read and write to both the share and the folder (even though mailmerge typically only reads the data source). -- Peter Jamieson http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk "Jane" wrote in message ... 1. The two files are in the same folder on a network drive. 2. the path to the data source is longish: \\server\company\word\mhl clients\h\hollowayjane\mailmerge.txt when I tested on the local drive it was short: c:\cis\mailmerge.txt 3. there are no filters or sorts "Peter Jamieson" wrote: I just did some simple tests here and was able to re-open when both merge Main Document and data source were on the same network drive, i.e. suggesting that the problem does not occur solely because it's a netwrok drive (it worked whether I connected using E DB or the internal text file converter). A few questions: a. are your mail merge document and data source in the same network folder? b. how long is the pathname of the data source? e.g. longer or shorter than the pathname you used when testing on a local drive? - the total length consists of all the charaters in \\computername\sharename\folders`filename.ext c. have any sorts or filters been applied to the data? -- Peter Jamieson http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk "Jane" wrote in message ... I'm having a very similar problem. In Word 2003 (on a Windows 2003 network) we cannot save word merge files with a user -assigned data source. One of the following will happen: 1. Our Word Merge templates (the 'letter' part of the file) are copied into a client directory, and staff edits the file to 'link' to the new data source (text file with CSV). Staff saves the document. The next time the staff opens the document Word responds with 'Opening this document will run the following SQL Command' - as we would expect - but then we get a message 'Word cannot find its data source ' - displaying the name of the file we linked in - which we know is there - so staff selects 'Find Data Source' and re-opens the file. WE GET THE SAME MESSAGE - Word cannot find its data source. The only option is to remove the headers. But even after we do that, Word Merge cannot find the data source. We cannot save the Word merge file with the correct data source attached. Here's the strange part. All our word files are saved to the network - the templates and the data source. If I attached a data source that's on my local drive to the word file, there is no problem - the merge file with the new data source saves fine. It's as if the merge file does not want a data source that's on a network drive - or is it the path? "Peter Jamieson" wrote: Well spotted on the incorrect display of the file path name, but unfortunately as far as I know it is a red herring and does not indicate anything other than a fault in the display. Further, whether the Mailmerge task pane displays the "long" data source location details or just the short file name depends on whether the data source is in what Word thinks is the "active" folder" (I think) - i.e. it is likely to change to that folder if you create a test .csv in Word and save it. However, things are complicated by the fact that Word has a number of different mechanisms for opening a .tx or .csv type file and chooses the mechanism depending on the file content (I think). I don't work for Microsoft or have have access to the source code, so I have to guess, but in Word 2002(XP) and 2003, I believe Word will either use Word's built-in text converter to read the file, or OLE DB. If it uses OLE DB, it generates a "connection string" which contains the path name of the folder containing the file. However, Word does not save the whole connection string (max 255 characters I think) and can truncate the pathname, so when you close and re-open the When you close the mail merge main document and re-open it, Word can't find the file.I'm not so sure that happens when Word opens the file using its converter. Anyway, if you try putting the file in a folder with a short pathname I think it will always work. However, there could also be problems if Word does not recognise the character encoding of your .csv file correctly - but let's leave that for now. Peter Jamieson wrote in message ps.com... Hi, I'm having a problem getting Word to remember the link to its data source for some files. It continually asks to locate the data source and if you point it to the file it just continually loops back and asks for the file location again. If you tell it "No" on the SQL check dialog, the file opens and I can go to "Open Data Source" and point to the file that way. The merge document is a one page letter. The data is a simple csv file with only 10 fields. I've tried putting the csv file in the My Data Sources folder and that doesn't fix it. I've tried using the registry setting to skip the SQL check, but that means I end up in the "Locate Data Source" loop with no way of opening the file at all. The closest thing I've come up with that sort of gets me to a work around is that some of the field headings have an underscore in them: First_Name, Last_Name, Address_1, etc. However, if I make a new csv file in notepad and make the names with an _, it works fine. But then I get the second clue. If I click on Tools | Letters and Mailings | Mail Merge to get the Mail Merge side bar, step 3 has some weirdness. On the csv file that does not work, the source that the recipients are currently selected from appears as: [:\foldername\source.cs] in "source.csv" If I make a csv file from scratch and do not use any underscores, that line becomes just: "test.csv" But as soon as I change a field name in the working csv file to contain and underscore it changes to: [:\foldername\test.cs] in "test.csv" It still works, probably because somewhere in the file it remembers that it used to work before I changed the file name, but who knows at this point. Has anyone else run into something similar or know of a fix? Thanks! |
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