ACT Menu Command does not Appear in MS Office Word 2003

[DanSir]

In ACT 11 I can't use MS Office Word 2003 as my default word processor because I can't get the ACT! Menu Option to appear in Word 2003 and the concomitant "Add Mail Merge Fields" box.  And yes, I followed each and every suggested "fix" detailed in Sage Knowledgebase article: "ACT! Menu Option is Missing from Microsoft Word" - such as enable ACT add-in; macro security settings; damaged normal.dot file; install Net 2.0 components; and repair MS Word application, etc.  None of the suggestions work.  I am still stuck using the ACT word processor.  Any ideas?

[dlunceford · Accepted solution]

Follow this KB article instead.

Unable to Access the ACT! Menu Option on the Microsoft® Word or Excel® Tool Bar 

[dlunceford · Accepted solution]

Follow this KB article instead.

Unable to Access the ACT! Menu Option on the Microsoft® Word or Excel® Tool Bar 

[DanSir]

Thank you.  The Hot Fix didn't really help, but is probably good to have.  What really worked was going into the registry, which is always exciting, and changing registry values for Word and Excel.  That did the trick!  Yay!  Now I can retype all my ACT templates into Word!

[blunt]

Ok, there is a lot of discussion on this, I hope my travels help others shorten the distance from frustration to solution.

Here is what finally worked for me. It is an amalgimation of 3 KB articles and great community support. Thanks a million.

First, I am using ACT! 2010 12.0.409.0 with Office 2003 Pro

1) If your computer came with the Office 2007 teaser and then you installed ACT! followed by Office 2003, you will need to take the following steps.

a) Uninstall Office 2007

b) Install Office 2003

c) reboot

If you have Office 2003 I assume you did these steps - but Office 2007 should be uninstalled.

a) uinistall ACT!

b) reboot

c) install ACT!

2)go into the registry and remove the following key:

HKEY_Current_User\Software\Microsoft\Office\Word\Addins\ACT7.OfficeAddin

At least the 2010 version does not use this key and will only get you confused by this article in support: In my case it actully prevented the proper DLL frm loading within Word.

http://kb.sagesoftwareonline.com/cgi-bin/sagesoftwareonline.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=2168...

You can also go to support.act.com and click on 'Knowledge Base' then search for

' Unable to Access the ACT! Menu Option on the Microsoft® Word or Excel® Tool Bar' (without single quotes)

to find the article above

This is for a previous version of ACT! addin and has not been updated. Thus a small Easter Egg Hunt will follow if you rely on this article.

The key you want for this version is:

HKEY_Current_User\Software\Microsoft\Office\Word\Addins\ActOffice2007Addin.connect -this is for all versions of office despite the title.

3) repairing Office is just a generally good idea. If you are on a stand alone workstation this can be done from the 'Help' 'Detect and repair' with Word.

For a terminal server instance, you must go to the Add/remove (or 2008 equivalent) and repair from there.

4) I applied this fix from Microsoft as just a good step: Update for Office 2003 (KB907417)

It did not fix the problem outright, but I'm unclear if it help - read #5 below

5) This is necessary and what ultimately fixed my situation along with #2 (I believe)

Close ACT! and any Office applications

Run the following cmds from CMD prompt (Start | Run | cmd)

1. c:
2. copy "c:\program files\act\act for windows\REGASM.EXE" "c:\program files\act\act for windows\office2007\regasm.exe"
3. cd\program files\act\act for windows\office2007
4. regasm ActOffice2007Addin.dll

Single line version: you can cut and paste the line below - including quotes - and then at the command prompt - right click and click on 'paste'

"c:\program files\act\act for windows\REGASM.EXE" "c:\program files\act\act for windows\office2007\ActOffice2007Addin.dll"

As an aside, there is limited discussion as to what the 'ACT!' menu item really is.  The blind assumption is that there is only one answer. Well, the ACT! menu could be on the Tools menu, on the Merge menu, on the Insert Fields menu, etc. Thus the assumption can again lead you on a goose chase if you don't see ACT! right on the main Word page. In my case I assumed it was a sub-menu and I just could not find it - aka. I was the problem. Since it is not a sub-menu, and there is no definitive statement where the ACT! menu item is suppose to be in any help, community or guide (I did not study all of them), thus a goose chase ensued.

The proper place for it is to the left of the 'Help' on the MAIN word menu.

My Word menu now reads from left to right: File Edit View Insert Format Tools Table Window ACT! Help