I would
like the merge function to direct itself to Lotus Notes as
the data source.
I don't have Notes here but I suspect there is only one way to do this, and
that is to get Lotus Notes address data using an ODBC driver for Notes
called NotesSQL, which is the sort of thing your Notes Administrator would
probably have to install.
I think if you follow this URL you will be directed to an up-to-date IBM URL
(which is so long I don't really want to try to post it here).
http://www.lotus.com/notessql
I don't know whether this is still a viable option, but if so,
a. the ODBC driver would have to be installed on your machine (maybe it
already is)
b. When you try to open/select the data source in Word, in the Open/Select
Data Source dialog boxyou will need either to click the "Use MS Query"
button in Word 2000 or earlier, or use the Tools|Query menu option in Word
2002 and later (it's in the top right hand corner of the dialog box). I
would expect to see some data sources with "LotusNotes" or "Notes" in their
names.
Beyond that, I don't have the product here so can't really offer any help,
but you may find that you need to retrieve a small number of data items per
address as Word sometimes has trouble retrieving large records.
Please note that "linking to Notes to get address data" is something
completely independent from "linking to Notes to send the merged e-mails",
which is another story (about which I also know little!)
If the NotesSQL isn't a viable way to go, as far as I know you will have to
stick to exporting your data from your Notes Client into a format Word can
use. And from what you say, I would suspect that the problem lies in the
initial export - it doesn't sound to me as if Notes is putting each address
book field into a separate column in your 123 spreadsheet. For now, I might
try exporting to a simpler format, e.g. tab-deliited or comma-delimited
text.
