# MS WORD 2003 mail merge - "cannot find datasource"



## wlappin (May 20, 2005)

The error message "Cannot find datasource" occurs when opening an MS Word 2003 mail merge document on a Windows XP machine with MS Access 2003. This does NOT happen when the same document is opened on a Windows XP machine running MS Word 2000 and MS Access 2000.

In the Access query that retrieves the data for the merge letter there were two fields with the same field name of MI (i.e. Middle Initial) but they are from "different" tables in the Access database. The SQL query code in Access shows these two fields with fully qualified names (e.g. Applicant.MI and Colleague.MI). So the field names were "distinct" in the query and the corresponding mail merge document opens correctly in MS Word 2000.

However, when the MS Word 2003 merge document opens the Access 2003 version of the same database and "executes" this same query then these two field names are NOT fully qualified. Another words, they both have a field name of MI. Since the field names are not fully qualified, Access 2003 renamed the second MI field as MI_1 and this field does not exist in the query so the query then fails. 

I changed the query in the MS Access 2003 database and gave the field named Colleage.MI an "alias" of ColleageMI to make the field name distinct (in the SQL code) from the MI field in the Applicant table of the Access database. I also changed the mail merge document to use this field. With these changes the mail merge document then opened OK in MS Word 2003.

Although this change did work, this will be a real pain if I have to make this same change to every mail merge document that gets data from a query where some field names are the same (but in different tables). Apparently, when MS Word 2003 opens a mail merge document that runs a query like this then the fully qualified field names from the SQL query are NOT being used and just the unqualified field names are used resulting in the problem just described.


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