The following steps show how to remove the link between a Word document and a mail merge data source.
When you open a Word document that has mail merge data source you see a message that reads:
Opening this document will run the following SQL command: ...
These steps work in both Word 2013 and Word 2016.
- With the Word document open, open the ‘Mailings’ tab
- Click on the ‘Start Mail Merge’ button
- Then click on ‘Normal Word Document’
- Close the save the document – the link to the data source has now been removed.
Didn’t work for me 🙁
Thank you very much for this Adrian Gordon!
THANK YOUUUUU it has worked for me!!!!
THANK YOU! Really helped me a looot as I was having my work no saved and reestarted like 4 times and was over frustration! Thank you so so much! It has worked!
Last year I created a mail merge document top mimic an ornate WORD document which I was asked to complete to send as an annual return. I set up a 2-column Excel sheet to hold the data (easy to scan down and edit) and wrote a small VBA macro to copy this col A, B data to rows 1 and 2. I then used this as the data source for my mailmerge. One year down theline, I have edited the EXCEL with new names etc but the &*%! insists on holding on to the 2020 data. I have moved the old data file out of the direectory.. I have nulled the link when opening the mail merge. I have re-ru the Mail Merge wizard but it makes no difference. Evrey time I try preview, I see “Annual Return 2020” again. Any ideas?
I have the same problem How the heck do you cancel the mail merge over 200 documents!
I just tried this, and I’m still getting the &*%! prompt. I need to be able to share the finished merge across the company (its a bunch of labels for samples) and that means separating it from the source while keeping the data in it.
Why did they make this so hard?