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

ID: Q173574

The information in this article applies to:
  • 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 .dbc 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 .dbc 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 .dbc files).

For additional information about this issue, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q157767 Vfpodbc5.exe Visual FoxPro ODBC Driver Version 5.0

After you install the new version of the Visual Fox Pro ODBC driver, use either of the following methods to perform the mail merge.

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.



STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in the Microsoft products listed at the beginning of this article.

This problem does not occur in Word 2000.


MORE INFORMATION

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

Q110093 WD: ODBC--Open Database Connectivity Overview

Additional query words: 8.0 8.00 foxpro

Keywords : kb3rdparty kbdta winword word97 kbmerge
Version : WINDOWS:97
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbbug


Last Reviewed: December 4, 1999
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