WD97: Cannot Use Visual Fox Pro ODBC Driver in Word Mail Merge

• Microsoft Word 97 for Windows

SYMPTOMS

When you do a mail merge in Microsoft Word 97 with a data file from Visual Fox Pro, Visual Fox Pro is not available in the Files Of Type list; and if Word finds the file, it does not open it.

This problem applies to files with the .vfp or .dbf file name extensions.

CAUSE

In order for Word to list a file type in the Files Of Type list during a mail merge, Word needs an installable Indexed Sequential Access Method (ISAM) file for the product.

Because there is no installable ISAM file for Visual Fox Pro, the Visual Fox Pro option is not available in the Files Of Type list.

WORKAROUND

The Visual Fox Pro Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) driver version 2.6 does not open .vfp or .dbf files. You can open these types of files if you update to the Visual Fox Pro ODBC driver version 5.0 (although you will still not be able to see .vfp files). To do this, please see the following Microsoft World Wide Web site:

   http://www.microsoft.com/kb/articles/Q157/7/67.htm

   http://www.microsoft.com/

Method 1: Copy the Visual Fox Pro Table to 2.x Format

1. In Visual Fox Pro, click Copy To on the File menu.

2. Copy the VFP table to a 2.x format.

3. Using the Fox 2.6 ISAM driver, you can then access the data in the new table from Word.

Method 2: Use MSQuery

If there is no ISAM capability to handle the data type you want, Word must do this through an ODBC driver. The only way to use ODBC in Word is with MSQuery, as follows:

1. In the Mail Merge Helper, click MS Query when opening the data source.

2. Setup your query and click OK.

MORE INFORMATION

For additional information about ODBC drivers, please see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

   ARTICLE-ID: Q110093
   TITLE     : WD: ODBC--Open Database Connectivity Overview

   ARTICLE-ID: Q150328
   TITLE     : INF: Files Needed for ODBC Driver(s) Redistribution