I have a mail merge document linking to records in an Excel file. Just
recently upon opening the Word document I now see the following message;

Opening this document will run the following SQL command
SELECT * FROM P:\Quotes\Quote log.xls
Data from your database will be placed in the document. Do you wish to
continue?

If I say Yes I then see the next message;
This task is taking longer than expected do you wish to continue? If I say
No I see the next message;

Word could not re-establish a DDE Connection to MS Excel to complete the
current task.

Any ideas why this message has started to occur?

Re: Error Message when opening Mail Merge doc by Beth

Beth
Thu Nov 11 09:33:13 CST 2004

The message you are encountering is part of the new security measures
Microsoft has incorporated in Word 2003 and Word 2002 SP-3. You can
suppress the message by using the Workaround found in this article:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;825765

Regarding the timeout error, in Excel go to Tools/Options/General and
make sure "Ignore other applications" is not enabled.

--
Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/


"Sho" <Sho@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:6C994AA6-7212-4CEB-985A-24CCB1F3F40B@microsoft.com...
>I have a mail merge document linking to records in an Excel file.
>Just
> recently upon opening the Word document I now see the following
> message;
>
> Opening this document will run the following SQL command
> SELECT * FROM P:\Quotes\Quote log.xls
> Data from your database will be placed in the document. Do you wish
> to
> continue?
>
> If I say Yes I then see the next message;
> This task is taking longer than expected do you wish to continue? If
> I say
> No I see the next message;
>
> Word could not re-establish a DDE Connection to MS Excel to complete
> the
> current task.
>
> Any ideas why this message has started to occur?