mail/fax merge with WinFax Pro

I've been trying for hours to get my Office 2000 to do a mail/fax merge. I can get a regular mail merge to work but cannot get it to fax. I have installed the macros from WinFax Pro and the "WinFax Mail Merge" heading appears under the "tools" menu but when I try to use it I get the following error message.
"Run time error 2147417851 (80010105) automation error ". If I try to do the fax merge through the regular "mail merge" option in Window's 2000 there is no option for fax (like the "microsoft word help" says there should be). There are only options for "new document,printer or electronic mail." What am I doing wrong? Am I missing something from either program that I need to install. It's been an exhausting 4 hours with no solution. Help !

 

You need to post the exact error if possible. I think yours says "runtime" rather than "Run time ". Small difference but significant when searching for info about the error.

Sounds like you have run head-on into a bug. You can read a description of the likely cause in PRB: Office 97 Automation Client Fails After Re-compilation with Office 2000 or Office XP Type Library (Q242375) but it is a programmer fix when building the new application.

Only suggestions I can make are:

1. Make sure you have the latest service packs, patches, etc. to your operating system and the program. If that doesn't help,

2. Report it to Microsoft via their online support page (not the automated "report an error" thing) and see if they are aware of the issue and have a fix they haven't published yet.

3. (maybe) If you did the 2000 install as an upgrade to an existing copy of Office on your PC, you can try removing the whole thing and doing a clean install with 2000.

Brother makes mention of the same error if using one of their devices with XP but it happens earlier - at boot-up.

 

I've looked at the document you sent and the error message they describe is exactly what I get. They offer a solution to work around the error message but as I am a neophyte computer geek I have no idea what they mean. They tell me to "use late binding instead of early binding" or "bind to the type library for the earliest version of the Office application ". Huh? Is that something I can do, or do I need to be making a living at this stuff in order to know how to do it? Thanx !

 

cone - that one went mostly over my head too. I think they are talking about something that has to be coded in as part of the original programming.

I looked around a bunch and coudn't find any sort of "user fix ".

Maybe moving this back to the top will cause someone else to take a look and have a fix idea.

Did you try working with Microsoft Tech Support on the problem? They do have some great techs. I can only remember one issue we couldn't solve in all the years I've been working with computers and using their tech support when I hit a wall.

 

Thanks so much Newt for your help. I'm going to take your advice and re-install Office 2000 and Win Fax Pro. If that doesn't work I'm just going to curl up into a fetal position and with therapy, try to forget I ever tried a mail merge/fax.