[Smitty]

Can Word 2010 go directly to a SharePoint list (not a SP Contact list) to
perform a mailmerge? I currently have to setup Access on a shared drive that
contains a externally linked table to my SP list...then create the .odc file
in the same shared folder....then customize my document to use that .odc to
perform the merge...lot of IT work to do this seemingly simple task...not to
mention having to rely on Access and shared folders...ughhhh!

If Excel/Access can get to SP lists...then why not Word...What's up with
that????

[Peter Jamieson]

Took a while to get back into a position to check this out, but I don't
see any new facility in the Word 2010 tech preview to do this.

I'll try to have a look around this area as some things may well have
changed since the messages I posted a few years back (AFAICR the main
problem with trying to access a list via OLE DB /without/ using Access
as an intermediary was that you had to know the list ID, which is a
meaningless GUID. But perhaps that has changed. I'd always assumed that
Access had a facility to get a list of lists via a web service of some
kind and so could discover the necessary GUID, then perhaps use an OLE
DB provider to get the list itself. But I really don't know.

If Excel/Access can get to SP lists...then why not Word...
What's up with that????

I don't work for Microsoft and can only speculate, but I'd say
a. the Word team are not particularly data-oriented
b. MailMerge has not had much resource spent on it for several versions
c. they probably expect anyone who wants to do that kind of thing to
be capable of either the kind of workaround that you are already using,
or of ruslting up a .NET programmer who can work with all the necessary
interfaces to produce something usable.

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk
Visit Londinium at http://www.ralphwatson.tv

On 22/10/2009 16:28, smitty wrote:
Can Word 2010 go directly to a SharePoint list (not a SP Contact list) to
perform a mailmerge? I currently have to setup Access on a shared drive that
contains a externally linked table to my SP list...then create the .odc file
in the same shared folder....then customize my document to use that .odc to
perform the merge...lot of IT work to do this seemingly simple task...not to
mention having to rely on Access and shared folders...ughhhh!

If Excel/Access can get to SP lists...then why not Word...What's up with
that????