Choose Your Data Source

  1. Start Microsoft Word and open a new document, or if you have a form letter already prepared, open that document.
  2. Perform the following action based on your Word version:
    Word Version Action
    2000 Click Tools > Mail Merge. If your Microsoft Office menus are set to Show recently used commands first, you may need to click the expansion arrows at the bottom of the Tools menu to see the Mail Merge option. The Mail Merge Helper dialog box appears.
    2003 Click Tools > Letters and Mailings > Mail Merge. If your Microsoft Office menus are set to Show recently used commands first, you may need to click the expansion arrows at the bottom of the Tools menu to see the Letters and Mailings option. The Mail Merge task pane appears.
    2007 Click Mailings > Start Mail Merge > Step by Step Mail Merge Wizard. The Mail Merge task pane appears.
  3. Perform the following action based on your Word version:
    Word Version Action
    2000 Under Main Document, click Create > Form Letters.
    2003 or 2007 In the Mail Merge pane, select the Letters radio button, and then click Next at the bottom of the pane.
  4. Because you are already working in the document into which you want to insert data, perform the following action based on your Word version:
    Word Version Action
    2000 In the query message window, click Active Window. You are then returned to the Mail Merge Helper dialog box.
    2003 or 2007 Click Use the current document, and then click Next.
  5. Perform the following action based on your Word version:
    Word Version Action
    2000 Under Data Source, click Get Data > Open Data Source.
    2003 or 2007 In the Select recipients section, click Use an existing list, and then click Browse.
    The Select Data Source dialog box appears.
  6. From this dialog box, click the MS Query button. For this exercise, uncheck the Query Wizard check box if it is selected. If you do not have an MS Query button, you need to install Microsoft Query on your machine. This starts Microsoft Query and opens the Choose Data Source dialog box.
  7. In the Choose Data Source dialog box, click the data source name (DSN) corresponding to the data source you want to access and click OK.
    Note: See Setting Up DSNs on the Client for instructions on creating DSNs.
    If you don't see your DSN listed, do one of the following:
    • Click Browse and navigate to C:\Program Files\Common Files\ odbc\DataSources, then double-click the name of your DSN. This adds the DSN to the list in the Choose Data Source dialog box.
    • Click Options and type the path to the directory containing your DSN, then click Add. Now the contents of that directory will be listed. For more information, see the Microsoft Query documentation.
  8. If you or an administrator established database security methods during AcuXDBC setup, the AcuXDBC login dialog box appears; type a valid User ID and Password, and click OK.
    Tip: You can display just the tables of a given user by selecting from the owner drop-down list. For example, you could display only the tables that belong to PUBLIC by choosing PUBLIC from the drop-down list.
    The Add Tables dialog box appears.
    Note: If no security methods have been established, a User ID and Password are not required and the Login dialog box will not appear.
Parent topic: Accessing Data From Word