Hi Dennis,

I have a successful mail merge setup that uses a local
Excel file as my address list. When I place this file
on a remote web site, so that it is addressed as
http://www.website.com/spreadsheet.xls rather than
c:\my documents\spreadsheet.xls, Word 2003 spends a
few seconds trying to retrieve the spreadsheet and then
reports the following error message:
"The document name or path is not valid"

Actually, this is due to the fact that Word's core mail
merge technology is some 15 or 20 years old. Before
internet addresses were commonplace. Word didn't learn to
recognize internet addresses at all until version 97, and
then only for opening files.

I'm afraid the data source has to be saved to a traditional
network or local path.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update
Jun 8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

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