All, I have a mail merge and macro that has been running since 2003 that has all of a sudden stopped working with a 5941 error message. Word 2010. It debugs on the last line:





Windows("M_HERBARIUM_LABEL.DOTX").Activate



Here is the whole code, any help greatly appreciated, thank you.

Mike O.



***

Sub MERGE_DEFAULT()
'
' MERGE_DEFAULT Macro
' Macro recorded 9/25/2003 by Greg Harmison
'

With ActiveDocument.MailMerge
.Destination = wdSendToNewDocument
.MailAsAttachment = True
.MailAddressFieldName = ""
.MailSubject = ""
.SuppressBlankLines = True
With .DataSource
.FirstRecord = wdDefaultFirstRecord
.LastRecord = wdDefaultLastRecord
End With
.Execute Pause:=False
End With
Application.Templates.LoadBuildingBlocks
Windows("M_HERBARIUM_LABEL.DOTX").Activate
End Sub

The error message is telling you that the file "M_HERBARIUM_LABEL.DOTX" isn't open.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Thanks Paul, but I am running that macro from within the document itself, which is already open.

The line:
Windows("M_HERBARIUM_LABEL.DOTX").Activate
is trying to activate a the file named "M_HERBARIUM_LABEL.DOTX". By definition, any .DOTX file is a template, not a document. When you double-click on a template, Word creates a new document (typically named Document1 or something such).

Furthermore, if the macro is in a template, that template cannot have a .DOTX extension, as the DOTX format does not support macros; a .DOT or .DOTM extension would be required.

You say you've been using this macro since 2003, but the DOTX format did not exist back then - it was introduced with Word 2007.

As for the code itself, it contains redundant lines that are only relevant for email merges and, do you realise the only (practical?) thing it does is to eliminate a few mouse clicks and switch back to the mailmerge main document after merging (so you then have to switch back to the output document before you can use it)?

Finally, for the purposes of a mailmerge, you should be using a mailmerge main document, not a template. Since you're using macros, that document would have to be saved in the DOC or DOCM format. So as to not get tangled up with possible name changes to the mailmerge main document, you might change the code to:
PS: When posting code, please use the code tags, indicated by the # button on the posting menu.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Hello Paul - Greatly appreciate the response and on how to post code. More background on this - from our database application we are building a command line string that opens Word, opens a merge document and passes in a text file, runs the macros, and completes the merge. It really *has* worked since 2003, the code I posted contained my (bungled) attempts at fixing it recently.

In our string I have now changed it to a .DOTM file and made progress - I still receive the error message but the file *does* merge. But, each merged record is on it's own page, whereas previously we had six labels per page. (these are scientific labels for labeling botanical specimens, not mailing labels). When I tried the code you posted, with just .ACTIVATE, I get "Invalid or Unqualified Reference". Sounds like I need something in from of .ACTIVATE?

Thank you again, very much.

Mike O.

Also discovered if I remove .ACTIVATE from the last line the merge completes without an error message, but every record is still on a single page - looking to get back the functionality of multiple labels on a single page (see attached). Thank you for any continued help.

Mike O.

Attached Images

labels_6.jpg (142.9 KB, 15 views)

Actually, the code I posted should have been:
As for getting one label per page, that's because someone has changed the merge type from label to letter. That can be fixed via the GUI or with:

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]