Mail Merge with external data source

[Myron]

I am attempting to have an xml mail merge document automatically
connect to an external database using the w:query and w:datasource
settings. When I open the xml doc, Word 2008 gives me an error that
it cannot find the data source.

This works fine with Office 2003 and 2007 for windows, but I am having
issues trying to get it to work with 2008 for mac.

Is this even possible on the mac platform?

Thanks for any input.

[John McGhie]

Hi Myron:

A data source for a mail merge operation can be an Excel sheet, the Office
Address Book, a FileMaker Pro database, or a Word document.

Sorry, nothing else is supported yet.

Cheers

On 20/11/09 7:14 AM, in article
ac9bda35-66ae-4b80...@w19g2000yqk.googlegroups.com, "Myron"
<skywa...@gmail.com> wrote:

--

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:jo...@mcghie.name

[Jim Gordon MVP]

That said, you can connect to almost any sort of data table using ODBC
in Excel, so you can use Excel as an intermediary between any sort of
database and Word's mail merge.

In theory, you can use AppleScript with Word to connect directly to
other data sources. I've tried to do this, but without success.

-Jim

--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP
Co-author of Office 2008 for Mac All-in-One For Dummies
http://tinyurl.com/Office-2008-for-Dummies

[Peter Jamieson]

> In theory, you can use AppleScript with Word to connect directly to
> other data sources. I've tried to do this, but without success.

My starting assumption would be that you are limited to opening what the
relevant method in Word is limited to (at best). What sort of files were
you trying to open?

It may be handy for the OP to know that

"or a Word document"

can mean pretty much any format that Word treats as a document, e.g. a
.htm file, delimited plain text file, not just .doc/.docx etc.

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Peter Jamieson wrote:
> > In theory, you can use AppleScript with Word to connect directly to
> > other data sources. I've tried to do this, but without success.
>
> My starting assumption would be that you are limited to opening what the
> relevant method in Word is limited to (at best). What sort of files were
> you trying to open?
>
> It may be handy for the OP to know that

The Applescript dictionary supports Open Data Source and Data Merge via
Microsoft Query via ODBC, if you could ever figure out the syntax.

> "or a Word document"

It appears it could be a Word document or any other valid ODBC data source.

[Peter Jamieson]

> The Applescript dictionary supports Open Data Source and Data Merge via
> Microsoft Query via ODBC, if you could ever figure out the syntax.

Yes, the still documentation suggests it can. But then it's exactly the
same documentation AFAICS that was in Word 2004's dictionary and Word
2004 VBA. We had that conversation back in 2006 about Word 2004 ODBC
connectivity. I think by that time several people had probably tried
quite hard to get an ODBC connection to work - the only response from
MSFT (apparently) was that the "\c ODBC switch was not supported in the
DATABASE field in Word 2004" I think he meant ODBC connectivity wasn't
supported, and I would guess it still isn't. While it is only a guess,
the practical distinction between "it's there, it's "supported" but
no-one "supports" it and there doesn't appear to be anyone who can get
it to work" and "it doesn't work" is very small.

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk