Dreamboat on Word: Word 2000, Word 2002, Word 2003 (On Office series)

Data Sources

In versions prior to Word 2002/XP, the default data source that is created when you chose Create Data Source is a table in a Word document. This is reasonable because users who own only Word do not need any other application to create a mail merge.

One of the weird things about having a Word document as a data source is that if there are too many columns, the data table may not fit on your portrait layout document. You can make a custom page size of up to 22' by 22' in Word to overcome this limitation, or just copy your data table into Excel directly.

New in 2002/XP is that the default data source is now an Access database, which is, by default, stored in My Documents\My Data Sources.

Word 2002/XP practically forces you to use the new Mail Merge Wizard in the task pane. So, if you simply want to edit or work in a merged document that you've already created, you'll first have to choose to view the mail merge toolbar by choosing it from the View Toolbars list.

One drawback has always been that new users of the Mail Merge feature have difficulty understanding that the data source is actually a separate file. Often, that separate file is much easier to edit than using the data entry form that Word provides for this purpose.

If you don't have a data source file already, then I strongly suggest using an Excel file for this purpose. Although many things can be done in Word, like sorting your lists, it just makes sense to use a program that handles data intuitively, such as Excel does.

An Access database works just as well as a data source, but many users are intimidated by Access. The basis for an Access database is the tables created within it. While there are more 'rules' to creating tables in Access than there are in creating Excel files, you may want to look at those tables as simple Excel files for now-they're just in a new container. Hopefully this keeps a few of you from fearing the Access database default data source.