using XML as mail merge data source in Word 2003

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c2pro - 02 Jan 2004 22:11 GMT

Can a simple (single table) XML file be used as a data source in Word 2003's mail merge process. Word 2003's on-line docs list HTML as a data source but not XML. I really don't want to transform the XML file to HTML, or import / map XML into Excel 2003 and then use Excel as the data source.

Thanks.

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Peter Jamieson - 03 Jan 2004 08:57 GMT

As far as I know, this is not possible "out of the box".

In principle, you could use an XML file as a data source if you had one of
the following:
a. a Word text converter capable of reading an XML file
b. an ODBC driver that treated an XML file as a table in a data source
c. an OLEDB provider that treated an XML file as a table in a data source
d. (possibly) something that would allow Jet to treat an XML file as a
linked table

I have a barebones, unfinished and poorly tested (a). Despam my address and
e-mail me if you are interested. In particular, it needs to be modified to
take account of new security stuff in Word 2003. I had plans for a
substantial overhaul and a crack at producing a (c), but they have been on
hold for a while. I suspect if (d) is feasible it would need a (b) anyway.

--
Peter Jamieson - Word MVP
Word MVP web site http://www.mvps.org/word

> Can a simple (single table) XML file be used as a data source in Word 2003's mail merge process. Word 2003's on-line docs list HTML as a data

source but not XML. I really don't want to transform the XML file to HTML,
or import / map XML into Excel 2003 and then use Excel as the data source.

> Thanks.

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Claus - 07 Jan 2004 21:18 GMT

I changed the extension on the xml file to html and Word 2002 opened it as
an html table just fine. I was then able to do the mail merge.

> As far as I know, this is not possible "out of the box".
>
[quoted text clipped - 22 lines]
> >
> > Thanks.

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Peter Jamieson - 07 Jan 2004 23:13 GMT

Hmm, that's interesting as it doesn't seem to work here.

What text do the first few lines of your .xml file contain?

--
Peter Jamieson - Word MVP
Word MVP web site http://www.mvps.org/word

> I changed the extension on the xml file to html and Word 2002 opened it as
> an html table just fine. I was then able to do the mail merge.
[quoted text clipped - 26 lines]
> > >
> > > Thanks.

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