Hi Kingsley,
The reason that Word can't import directly from ODBC is probably because
there hasn't been a good business case for Microsoft to offer that
functionality.
By "good business case" I mean that the Mac Business Unit needs to be
convinced that developing this capability will result in sufficient
additional sales of Word that the cost of development will be covered plus a
reasonable profit. (Reasonable to them, not to you and me).
After a couple years of hearing from Mac users that it would be worthwhile
to restore MS Query to the Macintosh version of office, Microsoft did just
that. I can tell by postings in the newsgroups that indeed many power users
of office for Mac are using MS Query. Microsoft can and will respond
positively if sufficient demand exists for product functionality.
A big holdup for MS Query and ODBC in general for Mac Office is that there
are no single-tier ODBC drivers for OSX. There are plenty of multi-tier
drivers, but we really need a set of drivers that will work on a single
machine to connect to Microsoft Access (the most important one), FoxPro,
FileMaker Pro, SAS, Oracle, and a few other popular database tables directly
within a single file structure or mounted network volume - just like they
did in OS 8 and 9.
I'm hoping that some day soon that Apple, Microsoft, or some other company
or developer will announce a single tier driver for Microsoft Access in
particular. Once such a driver is available, and if it is priced reasonably,
then the demand for ODBC integration into Word will likely increase
dramatically.
In the meanwhile, you can use MS Query and ODBC with Excel, and then use
Word's data merge to grab the data and put it into Word. That's not as neat
and pretty as doing it directly, but it does work.
Anyone who uses Word and would like to have direct ODBC to data table
support should explain their needs to Microsoft by using Word's feedback
feature on the Help menu. Remember, your request should be made in such a
way that Microsoft will be able to assess how many additional copies of Word
will sell as a result of adding this functionality.
-Jim Gordon
Mac MVP
All responses should be made to this newsgroup within the same thread.
Thanks.
About Microsoft MVPs:
http://www.mvps.org/
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