Mail merge will not link to Excel as a source

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I have posted this in MS Office Forums with no luck, so I hope it is OK to ask here ?

I have just moved all my files to a new PC.

With identically named file locations my Mail Merge document in Word successfully links to an Excel workbook which contains the merge data. I didn’t do anything, it just worked.

I want however to move the Excel Workbook and the Mail Merge document to a differently-named location (so that they are in the OneDrive directory).

When I do this I cannot re-link the document to the data source.

I can find the Workbook to link it, but when I select it I get the message “The Data Connection Wizard cannot obtain a list of databases from the specified source”.

This happens whether or not the Workbook is open.

Curiously . . . I have kept copies of the MailMerge and the Workbook in their original locations – that connection still works. But if I try and connect the copy of the MailMerge in its new location with the Workbook in the old location I still get the error message. So it doesn’t seem to the the location of the Workbook that is the issue.

I would be grateful for any help in how to reconnect my MailMerge to the Workbook source.

Martin

PS The copy of the MailMerge document in the new location remains successfully linked to the copy of the Workbook in the old location. I just cannot link it to the copy of the Workbook in the new location.

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Something about onedrive that the file routines in Word do not like? Given it works locally I’d stick with using OD as a backup.

cheers, Paul

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Thanks Paul – I didn’t move to OneDrive remotely, just to the OneDrive folder on my local drive.

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Try move instead of copy?

By default, an object inherits permissions from its parent object, either at the time of creation or when it is copied or moved to its parent folder. The only exception to this rule occurs when you move an object to a different folder on the same volume. In this case, the original permissions are retained.

How permissions are handled when you copy and move files and folders

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Thanks – I’ll try a move. But I will still have to re-link as the target Excel file will be in a different location. Anyway, I’ll give it a go.

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Sadly the “Move” didn’t make any difference.

Just to recap, on the same C: drive I have 2 instances of the Word document and the Excel workbook. Let’s call them “Old” – the ones simply copied from my old PC and the “New” – the ones copied into my local OneDrive folder so they get backed up to the cloud.

The Old mail merge document is succesfully linked to the Old Workbook. I didn’t “do” that, it just worked when I copied them to the same-named folders as they were on the previous PC.

The New mail merge document remains linked to the Old workbook – presumably because the link information still points to the Old workbook.

The thing that I want to do, but cannot, is to link the New document to the New workbook that’s when the error message comes up.

Bizarrely, if I break the existing link from the New document to the Old workbook, I cannot recreate it ! Same error message.

It seems to me that I cannot create any links from any Word document to any Excel workbook, but pre-existing links continue to function.

Now I am stumped.

OK, I have done further investigation. I have created a brand-new mail merge document. I get the same error message when I try to link it to ANY Excel workbook. The “New”, the “old” or any other one I have.

I wonder if there’s a problem with Connect to data source>ODBC DSN>Excel files>select file to link to ?

I could try using one of the other linking options, such as one of the (many) Microsoft OLE DB options but I don’t know/cona’t work out how to use them. I’ve “played around”, with no success

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One more snippet – the ODBC DSN method works fine with an Access database.

I am beginning to see that the problem lies with Excel. Could it be Trust Centre settings perhaps. I don’t know much about those !

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Solved, well sort of.

After a 2 hour support call with Microsoft, they couldn’t get it to work either.

But, instead of using “Connect to a new data source”, I can just select the Excel workbook from the list of files in the LH pane . That works.

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