MS Word + MyODBC

acidbox

I posted this on the windows forum a few days ago, but I guess nobody reads that forum. I'm doubleposting here so that someone might be able to help me.... Thanks 🙂

I am trying to establish a link in Microsoft Word XP to my Linux MySQL server via the MyODBC driver. I have installed the driver successfully, and I have made a successfull connection.

However, I have a problem while trying to retreive the table information from the remote MySQL database from within MS Word.

Inside Word, I select "Open New Data Source" from the database tool bar. I select the database, and click next. MS Word then gives me the following error:

"Unable to obtain list of tables from the data source"

I don't know what's causing this. I can connect to the database fine from the ODBC setup, and I have given the user in the database FULL permissions. However, for some reason, MS Word cannot retreive the information...

Has anyone had this problem before, or know why this is happening?

acidbox

bump...

can anyone help? I really would like to get this working.

jeremuck

well... it's microsoft...

it doesn't play well with other manufactures' software... especially if it's open source.

sorry.

acidbox

But the whole point of creating the MyODBC drivers was to interface with Microsoft. It has to work...

acidbox

bump 🙁

examancer

i don't know much about ODBC, but maybe you need to specify a default database. Maybe word is logging into your database, and seeing a list of databases when its expecting a list of tables in a database, and it gets confused. Again, i don't know much about ODBC, but you may want to try and find a way to select a default database for the ODBC connection.

acidbox

The MyODBC driver has a spot to enter the default database to connect to. I have it set correctly.

Also, there are "Perform on connect" commands.

I tried using the "Use" command, as specified in the following article where this guy had the same problem as me. Don't think he fixed his problem either:

http://www.geocrawler.com/archives/3/13/2002/6/100/8872143/

acidbox

Here is the log file that MyODBC generates when I run the Tracing feature to debug errors. I don't know what it means..

jeremuck

try comparing the error log when it didn't work to the log that gets produced when you connect in the MyODBC setup. You might see something.

Here is my advice. You might never get it working, getting from Word to mySQL.

Figure out a way to use a medium that works.
Use php to create a txt file to go into word... then activate a macro to dig out the txt file.
Or, find a way to access word within PHP.

It's not too hard to get into Excel and even Access using PHP. From there you can get to Word.
If you were developing on Windows, I'd tell you to just use PHP's COM functionality. (I had some success doing that for Excel).

I would be surprised if you ever got Word to look up data in mySQL. Find another way.

examancer

I can't get MySQL to work with word through ODBC either. I can get it to see and log into the database and I even got it to select the database, but it does't see any tables. Excel, however, sees everything just fine, so its not the ODBC driver I don't think, or even a problem with MySQL. It appears to be a Word prolem. You can access data through excel and get it into word that way, if that helps.

acidbox

I did some tinkering around, and found that it works fine in every other office application except word sigh... works in excel and access just fine. So why won't it work in Word?! That makes no sense. It says on the MyODBC website that it has been tested with OfficeXP, I assume that means word XP also. Perhaps it is a bug in Office like Ex said?

Has anyone tried this on an older version of word? Will it work in 2000 or 98?

I run a linux server, so I can't use COM, and I really am trying to make this process as automated as possible, so I don't want to have to go through excel to get to word. Hrm... Any ideas?

jeremuck

yeah, if you really want it to work with WORD, it sounds like you have enough time to really dig into it.

So, start looking at WORD documentation, not MYODBC...

It's Word that isn't working, so look at that.

Dig around on Microsofts' MVPs' sites. Research bugs in Word.
Investigate other options, too... that's the problem with Microsoft, is that you never know what to expect, and you can't really depend on it to work. It hides details and only shows you what it wants you to see. Look at the object model for Word.

Maybe figure out a VB macro that you can execute from PHP without COM. Output to a text file, and make the VB macro eat it up.

Look on Microsoft newsgroups and forums.

acidbox

I'm about to give up and just find a script to send all the information from access to word via a vbscript. I can't believe there are so many problems communicating between linux and windows.

PHPdev

You could always use access as an intermediary. I KNOW I have accessed my MySQL databases using MyODBC and MS Access. You could create a db file that has linked tables to the MySQL db. Sorry I dont know why WORD is not accessing the DB directly but it is worth a try...

PHPdev

acidbox

that sounds like a good idea PHPDev, but I have no idea how to write the code necessary to automatically pull the stuff I need from access and populate word fields.... sigh Any tutorials or anything out there?😕

jeremuck

use Access as your data source, instead of mysql/myodbc.

poke around in the menus.

be careful when writing your queries... MS will change them (without your permission)

MS Query is the worst product EVER.

you can't do: WHERE expr1 AND (expr2 OR expr3 )

it's amazing... my computer almost went out the window.

it changed mine to WHERE expr1 AND expr2 OR expr3
which gave weird results obviously.

chings

me too , i can't too in word

so there is another alternative .....

it works well in excel , so open data and save in excel format , then go to word then