Editing recipient list in mail merge from word 2007 not working

[dlaslett]

Hi folks,



A bit of a weird one here that I can't find an answer to anywhere.

We have several documents that we use to perform mail merges.

They are all working with the exception of one.

Essentially, the recipient list / edit recipients functionality is not working. If we just with to merge and print one document (which is often the case), we would DESELCT ALL at the top of the edit recipients dialogue, select the record we want, and hey presto. However, word is ignoring what we select and printing all 10,000 records in the db.... going back into EDIT RECIPIENTS shows all records "ticked" again (the other documents don't do this - they remember what was ticked last and show the same records).

screenshots are attached

1) opening dialogue :

2) EDIT RECIPIENTS > DESELECT ALL > PICK RECORD

3) if we print out at this point - EVERYTHING prints.

going back into "EDIT RECIPIENT LIST" at this point shows that everything is once more selected.... in other documents it would "remember" what we selected...


It is interesting to note at this point that both the database name in the bottom left corner, and the "find duplicates" options are greyed out....
not sure if this has any bearing. The system was working up until yesterday. There have been no changes to the MDB, and I have looked for escape characters in the data etc.... very odd!



If anyone can shed any light on this, it would be much appreciated! It has been years since I have done anything with mail merges... (I did not set this up originally but it has been working perfectly for some years)

finally here is a screenshot from the "sister" document, which is working perfectly - db name not greyed out, and it remembers whatever we pick....

Both documents use different queries within the same database.....

Database name : P.A.M.Guarantees.mdb

Thanks all - word version is 2007

Dave

[gmayor]

Close Word. Press CTRL+SHIFT+Esc to ensure there are no running WinWord.Exe processes still running. If there are close them from the Task Manager. (Better still reboot the PC).

See http://www.gmayor.com/what_to_do_when_word_crashes.htm and ensure that you check the folder with the merge document for orphaned lock files.

Restart Word. Open the errant document. Set the document type to Normal Word document from Start Mail Merge on the Mailings Tab

Click Select Recipients and re-attach your data source.

You can if you wish, suppress the SQL prompt with a macro - see http://www.gmayor.com/word_vba_examples.htm - 'Toggle the SQL security entry in the registry through vba'

Has that fixed it?

[dlaslett]

Hi Graham, I shall do the above and report back shortly! Thank you for the quick response.

Dave

[dlaslett]

Hi Graham,

Done the above, but no change, unfortunately (VERY helpful website by the way). Could not see any lock files.

I tried following your instructions too using a completely new, blank word doc and I get the same issue - defaulting to ALL SELECTED in the list when clicking EDIT RECIPIENTS... very odd... comparing these word docs with the one that works, I see no difference apart from the VIEW in the access db.. i.e. they both use the same MDB, but different tables within... at operating systems level both have the same file attributes etc.

"Broken doc" uses QryAllDPCCertificates and "working doc" uses QryAllWallTiesCertificate... both last modified in 2010....

Best,

Dave

[dlaslett]

Hi Folks,

I am updating this in cvase it everyone helps as I have now got a solution.

As it turns out - the issue was size. There is an upper limit of 10,000 for mail merging in this manner. I've made a backup copy and deleted all records older than 2 years and now everything is working as it should.

Hope this is of some help to someone.

Dave