WD98: View Merged Data Fails After Using Find Record (181240)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Word 98 Macintosh Edition
This article was previously published under Q181240

SYMPTOMS

After you use Find Record (on the Mail Merge toolbar) in a mail merge document, you may experience one or both of the following symptoms:

  • Merge fields in the merge document are no longer updated. You will notice this behavior if the View Merged Data feature is enabled.

    -or-
  • When you attempt to merge the document, you receive the following error message:
    Word could not merge the main document with the data source because the data records were empty or no data records matched your query options.
    After you receive this message, Word may quit or stop responding (hang), with the only option being to restart the computer and restart Word.

CAUSE

This problem occurs when you use Find Record and you then do either of the following:

  • You browse through the data records using either the First Record, Previous Record, Next Record, or Last Record commands on the Mail Merge toolbar.

    -or-
  • You attempt to merge the document.

WORKAROUND

You must quit and restart Word when you receive the error message.

Once you've restarted Word, you can use either of the following methods to avoid this problem.

Method 1: Use Query Options to Limit the Merge

NOTE: You must be in the mail merge Main (form) document to change the query for the merge.

Use Query Options to limit the merge to the desired record. To do this, follow these steps:

  1. On the Tools menu, click Mail Merge.
  2. In the Mail Merge Helper dialog box, click Query Options.

    NOTE: You must have already selected the main document and data source for the merge.
  3. In the Query Options dialog box, under Filter Records, click in Field and then select the desired field (for example, select COMPANY).
  4. In the Compare To box, type text you want to look for (in this example, type the company name), and then click OK.
  5. In the Mail Merge Helper dialog box, click Merge.

    NOTE: If you made no changes in the Merge dialog box, the Close button is not available. Click Cancel instead.

Method 2: Merge to a New Document, Find, and Then Print the Desired Record

After you have successfully performed the merge, place the insertion point at the beginning of the resulting document and follow these steps:

  1. On the Edit menu, click Find.
  2. In the Find What box, type the desired record (in this example, select the Company field, and click Find Next).

    Note the record and page numbers.
  3. On the File menu, click Print. In the Pages from, type the record or page number, and then click Print to print the desired record.
NOTE: To update the merge fields manually, cycle through the View Merged Data options on the Mail Merge toolbar, and then select the fields and press F9. Note, however, that this will only update the one record: you must restart Word to fully restore the record selection buttons on the Mail Merge toolbar (First Record, Previous Record, and so on).

For additional information regarding problems with merging, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

147264 WD: Word Could Not Merge the Main Document with the Data Source

RESOLUTION

To resolve this problem, upgrade to Microsoft Word 2001 for Mac.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.
Modification Type:MinorLast Reviewed:10/29/2004
Keywords:kbbug kbfix kbmerge KB181240
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