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Thread ID: 23318 2002-08-13 09:05:00 Waiting for Excel to Accept DDE Commands Forrest (1056) Press F1
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70739 2002-08-13 09:05:00 Hi there,

I am hoping someone will have come across this one before?

I have 4 Word 200 files that I have mail merged with an address list in Excel 2000.

When I go to open the Word file the following message appears in the status line along the bottom of the screen;

"Waiting for Excel to accept DDE Commands"

Word hangs and has to be shut down with the Task Manager.

Any ideas???

?:|
Forrest (1056)
70740 2002-08-13 09:11:00 Have you tried opening them with the data files already opened in Excel? godfather (25)
70741 2002-08-13 09:15:00 mmm this is advanced VBA stuff - hello Graham L are you there???

DDE is a way of sharing data between applications and the problem could be if you are trying this operation from more that one Word doc at the same time . When Word is linking to the Excel file to obtain the records it is creating a temporary link to the file, so if you open another Word doc linking to the same Excel workbook then Word is saying it cant establish the link because the Workbook is already open .

Thats my guess anyway . Are you opening multiple Word documents linking to the same Excel spreadsheet?

cheers
Parry
parry (27)
70742 2002-08-13 09:17:00 Hi Parry,

No I have the four templates set up but am only trying to open one at a time, it just happens to hang on all four that I try??

F
Forrest (1056)
70743 2002-08-13 09:29:00 Interesting. When opening these files do you have one instance of Word, then opening one file after the other? The DDE link is at application level, not the individual Doc so if you open Word, do the MM, then close Word and go onto the next one in this fashion do you have the same problem?

Parry
parry (27)
70744 2002-08-13 09:36:00 oops should have added to close Excel as well. So to recap....

1) Open Word
2) Open document with MM (it will open the Excel file)
3) Close Word and Excel
4) Repeat 1-3 for other templates
parry (27)
70745 2002-08-13 10:04:00 Hi again,

It hangs whether I open Word first then navigate to the file, or if I use Explorer first then double click on the Word file . Excel opens in both cases but Word displays the message in its status bar then nothing .

Thought I should also mention that today I installed Windows SP3,
yesterday the files worked fine? Do you think it could possibly be related?
Forrest (1056)
70746 2002-08-13 10:14:00 Perhaps but not sure. Sorry but my hourglass of knowledge on this has just run out of sand. I will have a look at some Word sites tomorrow if I get a chance - anything to get out of work!!

Im not sure whether doing a MM writes VBA code behind the scenes. If so I might be able to decipher it, but otherwise it's a search on the net.

Have you tried putting the exact wording of the error (including the name of the title of the error dialog box) in a search engine like Google?
parry (27)
70747 2002-08-13 10:46:00 I tried MS Support and technet before coming here, but with no luck, I'll try google and see how I get one .

Many many thanks for your help .
Forrest (1056)
70748 2006-01-26 17:05:00 Hi there,

I am hoping someone will have come across this one before?

I have 4 Word 200 files that I have mail merged with an address list in Excel 2000 .

When I go to open the Word file the following message appears in the status line along the bottom of the screen;

"Waiting for Excel to accept DDE Commands"

Word hangs and has to be shut down with the Task Manager .

Any ideas???

?:|

Hi, I also experience the same problems . Howevern ot always and I cannot find the clue . New installation of Office 2000 prof . didn't change anything .
Did you finally get an answer ?
Hope to hear from you,
regards, Arjen
arjen (1479)
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