That's interesting. I've never encountered that problem before. Do you have the Access DB open when you start the mail merge? What is the exact error message you're getting? Is the mail merge something you could just do right in Access? I generally don't bother with Word unless it's something that requires a lot of manual editing of the final document. Access can perform mail merge to a report all by itself. As a workaround until you find a solution, you could use an append query, copy the records from SharePoint that you need to a 2nd database that is all local files and then use that database for the merge.

Thank you for replying so promptly. I have been watching your videos for many years now, and a lot of what I know from Access, I have learned from you. Thank you. As for the Word mail merge, I start it from Access, so, yes, the database is open when I start the merge. The error message I get is precisely about that: "The database has been placed in a state by user "Admin" (Me) on machine that prevents it from being opened or locked." Or something along the lines , " Word couldn't access the data source." Again, if I make the whole database local, the merge works no problem. If I create a query or a local table based on the other tables linked to Sharepoint, the merge doesn't work. The database I created with the Sharepoint links is used in two different branches by about five different users. They feel more comfortable creating email messages in Word, and using the data in Access to send them... Thanks in advance for your help.

Yeah, something in your database is causing it to be locked exclusively. Are you working with Recordsets? If so, that could be causing it. The OpenDatabase command especially will put your database in an exclusive mode. You could try exporting the data that you want to merge into an Excel or CSV file and then perform the merge on that data. I've been planning on doing a TechHelp video on Mail Merge as soon as I update my Word lessons (probably in January). I could include this if you think it would help. Basically perform an expert in Access, create a CSV file with the needed data, then go over to Word and use that file for the merge. At your skill level it should be a piece of cake. :)