Mail merge and Access (Office 2000 and Access 97)

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Is it possible to have both Access 97 and Access 2000 installed on the one computer and have Word use Access 97 for mail merges?

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It’s possible to have both versions of Access on the same machine, although there are some potential conflicts, and you’re skating around one of them. Word 2000 doesn’t know which version of Access it should be using. Perhaps if you explain more specifically what you’re trying to do, someone can help you. If there some reason to use Access 97 instead of just converting the database to 2000?

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I cannot convert the database to 2000 as other users only have Access 97. The mail merge is just a form letter from a staff database. Is there some way to tell Word 2000 which version of Access to use?

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Have you tried it on a machine with Access 97 only? Office 2000 can open Office 97 documents, so I would be surprised if it didn’t work on those machines. It’s only machines with two versions where you might have problems because Access 2000 will open a 97 database, but it wants to convert it.

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Yes. Iset that up on Friday and it works fine. However, the person concerned wants to start using Access 2000 as well. Maybe he will have to wait until everyone is converted to Office 2000 if you cannot tell Word which version of Access to open.

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We solve this problem by splitting the database and creating an Access 2000 and an Access 97 front-end. That way those that want to run Office 2000 can do the merges using Access 2000 and Word 2000, while those still running 97 use the 97 front-end. You don’t want to run that way for a long time, as Access 2000 takes a rather sizeable performance hit using and Access 97 back-end, but it will work while you do an upgrade and isn’t too painful. If you need further details, post back.

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