[Tim Turnquist]

Since XML is becoming a cross-platform data standard it would be nice to have
it as a possible datasouce for Word MailMerge.

I think I can do what I need to by importing the XML into Excel or Access,
then merging from there, but that seems overly cumbersome, complicated and
prone to errors.

Any other suggestions?

----------------
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suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow this
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click "I Agree" in the message pane.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/comm...merge.fi elds

[Peter Jamieson]

Unfortunately although they are definitely aware of the fact that some
people would like to be able to use XML as a simple data exchange format and
therefore as a data source, implemeting something useful in this area
doesn't appear to be on MS's current agenda.

There are problems, of course: as it stands, Word basically wants its data
sources to be simple 2-D tables with the same number of columns in every
row, cf. traditional relation database tables, whereas XML can represent
much more complicated structures. Trying to second-guess the user by
flattening more complex structures into 2-D tables (and ignoring anything
that doesn't fit) probably isn't a smart move because it just invites "why
doesn't it work as I expect?" responses. But IMO if the user is willing to
transform their data into a simple 2-D structure reading the XML data
shouldn't be that hard. I did actually do the first draft of a Word text
converter that read simple XML files in this way a few years ago but never
finished it.

I think I can do what I need to by importing the XML into Excel or Access,
then merging from there, but that seems overly cumbersome, complicated and
prone to errors.

Quite.

If your XML is basically going to transform into a tabular structure with 63
columns or fewer and you're using Word 2003 Professional, your best bet may
be to use an XSL transform to transform your XML into a WordProcessingML
document containing a table, then use that as your data source. if it has
more than 63 columns you can consider transforming into a WordProcessingML
file with the data in tab-delimited format, but then you have to deal with
tabs and double-quotes in the data. I haven't tried it.

You can try opening an XML file using a DDE connection to Excel. You could
probably also transform your XML to SpreadsheetML and try opening that using
a DDE connection to Excel. but what I am fairly sure you cannot do, despite
the fact that the XML formats are supposed to be "native," is access them
through the Excel (i.e. Jet) ODBC driver/OLEDB provider.

Going via Access is probably the simplest approach that's actually likely to
work, as long as you don't exceed its column count.

Peter Jamieson

"Tim Turnquist" Tim wrote in message
news
Since XML is becoming a cross-platform data standard it would be nice to
have
it as a possible datasouce for Word MailMerge.

I think I can do what I need to by importing the XML into Excel or Access,
then merging from there, but that seems overly cumbersome, complicated and
prone to errors.

Any other suggestions?

----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow
this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/comm...merge.fi elds

[Peter Jamieson]

Oh yes, or transform into an HTML table.

Peter Jamieson
"Peter Jamieson" wrote in message
...
Unfortunately although they are definitely aware of the fact that some
people would like to be able to use XML as a simple data exchange format
and therefore as a data source, implemeting something useful in this area
doesn't appear to be on MS's current agenda.

There are problems, of course: as it stands, Word basically wants its data
sources to be simple 2-D tables with the same number of columns in every
row, cf. traditional relation database tables, whereas XML can represent
much more complicated structures. Trying to second-guess the user by
flattening more complex structures into 2-D tables (and ignoring anything
that doesn't fit) probably isn't a smart move because it just invites "why
doesn't it work as I expect?" responses. But IMO if the user is willing to
transform their data into a simple 2-D structure reading the XML data
shouldn't be that hard. I did actually do the first draft of a Word text
converter that read simple XML files in this way a few years ago but never
finished it.

I think I can do what I need to by importing the XML into Excel or
Access,
then merging from there, but that seems overly cumbersome, complicated
and
prone to errors.

Quite.

If your XML is basically going to transform into a tabular structure with
63 columns or fewer and you're using Word 2003 Professional, your best bet
may be to use an XSL transform to transform your XML into a
WordProcessingML document containing a table, then use that as your data
source. if it has more than 63 columns you can consider transforming into
a WordProcessingML file with the data in tab-delimited format, but then
you have to deal with tabs and double-quotes in the data. I haven't tried
it.

You can try opening an XML file using a DDE connection to Excel. You could
probably also transform your XML to SpreadsheetML and try opening that
using a DDE connection to Excel. but what I am fairly sure you cannot do,
despite the fact that the XML formats are supposed to be "native," is
access them through the Excel (i.e. Jet) ODBC driver/OLEDB provider.

Going via Access is probably the simplest approach that's actually likely
to work, as long as you don't exceed its column count.

Peter Jamieson

"Tim Turnquist" Tim wrote in message
news
Since XML is becoming a cross-platform data standard it would be nice to
have
it as a possible datasouce for Word MailMerge.

I think I can do what I need to by importing the XML into Excel or
Access,
then merging from there, but that seems overly cumbersome, complicated
and
prone to errors.

Any other suggestions?

----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the
"I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow
this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and
then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/comm...merge.fi elds

[Tim Turnquist]

Peter,
Thanks for the quick reply. As disappointing as it is, it actually makes a
great deal of sense.

Since this is a for daily process that is always the same and done by an
'un-techie user' I think I will just write a quick XML parser in VBA and turn
all the nice XML into a dictionary and then tab or comma delimited the fields
and write them into a simple txt file. I think that would probably be the
simpliest for the user, since they would just have to remember to run the
Macro before the MailMerge rather than importing and/or worrying about file
structure, DDE's, ODBC's etc. Keep it simple, right?

Thanks again for the quick, informative reply -- and if you have any other
suggestions I would appreciate those as well.

-Tim

"Peter Jamieson" wrote:

Unfortunately although they are definitely aware of the fact that some
people would like to be able to use XML as a simple data exchange format and
therefore as a data source, implemeting something useful in this area
doesn't appear to be on MS's current agenda.

There are problems, of course: as it stands, Word basically wants its data
sources to be simple 2-D tables with the same number of columns in every
row, cf. traditional relation database tables, whereas XML can represent
much more complicated structures. Trying to second-guess the user by
flattening more complex structures into 2-D tables (and ignoring anything
that doesn't fit) probably isn't a smart move because it just invites "why
doesn't it work as I expect?" responses. But IMO if the user is willing to
transform their data into a simple 2-D structure reading the XML data
shouldn't be that hard. I did actually do the first draft of a Word text
converter that read simple XML files in this way a few years ago but never
finished it.

I think I can do what I need to by importing the XML into Excel or Access,
then merging from there, but that seems overly cumbersome, complicated and
prone to errors.

Quite.

If your XML is basically going to transform into a tabular structure with 63
columns or fewer and you're using Word 2003 Professional, your best bet may
be to use an XSL transform to transform your XML into a WordProcessingML
document containing a table, then use that as your data source. if it has
more than 63 columns you can consider transforming into a WordProcessingML
file with the data in tab-delimited format, but then you have to deal with
tabs and double-quotes in the data. I haven't tried it.

You can try opening an XML file using a DDE connection to Excel. You could
probably also transform your XML to SpreadsheetML and try opening that using
a DDE connection to Excel. but what I am fairly sure you cannot do, despite
the fact that the XML formats are supposed to be "native," is access them
through the Excel (i.e. Jet) ODBC driver/OLEDB provider.

Going via Access is probably the simplest approach that's actually likely to
work, as long as you don't exceed its column count.

Peter Jamieson

"Tim Turnquist" Tim wrote in message
news
Since XML is becoming a cross-platform data standard it would be nice to
have
it as a possible datasouce for Word MailMerge.

I think I can do what I need to by importing the XML into Excel or Access,
then merging from there, but that seems overly cumbersome, complicated and
prone to errors.

Any other suggestions?

----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow
this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/comm...merge.fi elds

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

Create the mailmerge main document as a template and create a macro named
autonew() in that template and have the user use FileNew and select the
template when they want to do the Mail Merge and then the conversion macro
will run automatically when the new document is being created by the
FileNew command.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

"Tim Turnquist" wrote in message
...
Peter,
Thanks for the quick reply. As disappointing as it is, it actually makes a
great deal of sense.

Since this is a for daily process that is always the same and done by an
'un-techie user' I think I will just write a quick XML parser in VBA and
turn
all the nice XML into a dictionary and then tab or comma delimited the
fields
and write them into a simple txt file. I think that would probably be the
simpliest for the user, since they would just have to remember to run the
Macro before the MailMerge rather than importing and/or worrying about
file
structure, DDE's, ODBC's etc. Keep it simple, right?

Thanks again for the quick, informative reply -- and if you have any other
suggestions I would appreciate those as well.

-Tim

"Peter Jamieson" wrote:

Unfortunately although they are definitely aware of the fact that some
people would like to be able to use XML as a simple data exchange format
and
therefore as a data source, implemeting something useful in this area
doesn't appear to be on MS's current agenda.

There are problems, of course: as it stands, Word basically wants its
data
sources to be simple 2-D tables with the same number of columns in every
row, cf. traditional relation database tables, whereas XML can represent
much more complicated structures. Trying to second-guess the user by
flattening more complex structures into 2-D tables (and ignoring anything
that doesn't fit) probably isn't a smart move because it just invites
"why
doesn't it work as I expect?" responses. But IMO if the user is willing
to
transform their data into a simple 2-D structure reading the XML data
shouldn't be that hard. I did actually do the first draft of a Word text
converter that read simple XML files in this way a few years ago but
never
finished it.

I think I can do what I need to by importing the XML into Excel or
Access,
then merging from there, but that seems overly cumbersome, complicated
and
prone to errors.

Quite.

If your XML is basically going to transform into a tabular structure with
63
columns or fewer and you're using Word 2003 Professional, your best bet
may
be to use an XSL transform to transform your XML into a WordProcessingML
document containing a table, then use that as your data source. if it has
more than 63 columns you can consider transforming into a
WordProcessingML
file with the data in tab-delimited format, but then you have to deal
with
tabs and double-quotes in the data. I haven't tried it.

You can try opening an XML file using a DDE connection to Excel. You
could
probably also transform your XML to SpreadsheetML and try opening that
using
a DDE connection to Excel. but what I am fairly sure you cannot do,
despite
the fact that the XML formats are supposed to be "native," is access them
through the Excel (i.e. Jet) ODBC driver/OLEDB provider.

Going via Access is probably the simplest approach that's actually likely
to
work, as long as you don't exceed its column count.

Peter Jamieson

"Tim Turnquist" Tim wrote in
message
news
Since XML is becoming a cross-platform data standard it would be nice
to
have
it as a possible datasouce for Word MailMerge.

I think I can do what I need to by importing the XML into Excel or
Access,
then merging from there, but that seems overly cumbersome, complicated
and
prone to errors.

Any other suggestions?

----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the
"I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow
this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and
then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/comm...merge.fi elds