SP3 and Mail Merge

T

TJAC

A query within an Access 2003 DB then merges all of the data and creates 1
table, which is then used as input to the Word mail-merge Benefit Statement
process. No changes to the database were made this year - only cosmetic
changes were necessary to the mail-merge letters.

We experienced intermittent problems this year and have identified the cause
of the problem as Access 2003 SP3. One individual received a new computer
this year, and is running Word 2003 SP3 and Access 2003 SP3. While
extracting 1 employee at a time for the mail-merge process, the mail-merge
letter was accurate. While extracting more than 1 employee (batch extract:
all Salaried employees), the mail-merge process intermittently pulled the
incorrect data during the mail-merge process. One employee's mail-merge
letter might be fine, the next one might be incorrect (incorrect = invalid $
appeared on the letter - the $ on the letter was not in the Access table for
that employee).

Two people reported the problem earlier this week after receiving some
questions from some staff. I tried to replicate the issue on my computer, but
my mail-merge letters were accurate (the correct $ were pulled for the
correct employee). The only difference I was able to determine from my PC
and the other was that the other was running Access 2003 SP3, where I was
running Access 2003 SP2. We were both running the same version of Word (Word
2003 SP3). I spent about an hour on Microsoft Knowledgebase looking for
reported problem in Access 2003 SP3, and while I found many problems, I did
not find an explicit reference to mail-merge problems.

Today, we tested the theory regarding SP3. Another person has Access 2003
SP2, so someone ran the mail-merge letters on her PC, and the letters were
accurate. This mimic'd the results I saw on my computer (SP2 good, SP3 bad).


Appreciate any thoughts/ideas you have on this issue

Trisha
 
P

Paul Shapiro

There were some important post-SP3 hotfixes. You could make sure those are
installed and try again.

But I don't remember that the issues included inaccurate queries. Did you
look at the source query in Access to see if the data was correct there? Is
the data in your created table correct? If Access has the correct data and
the mail merge comes out wrong, it might be Word you need to look at. Do a
manual mail merge from Word and see if the correct data is coming from
Access.
 

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