V
VanguardLH
Gianni said:
Since you are asking Word to specify a source for addresses (lookup), it
has to go to a data source it can understand, like Outlook. Obviously
Word cannot be programmed to understand how every e-mail client happens
to construct their database or the format of data stored in a flat file
for some other program. It knows how to ask Outlook for contacts.
Outlook has its method to store contacts. Windows Address Book is a
differently structured container. Thunderbird, Eudora, Pegasus Mail,
Seamonkey, and so on all have their own method of storing contact data.
You're asking Word to go out somewhere looking for addresses. Well, it
knows how to read Outlook's contacts. The "Insert Address" button (what
I see in Word 2003) goes to Outlook to look at its list of contacts.
Which set of contacts depends on which selection is made in the "Show
Names from the" field (and which lists the contact-type folders defined
in Outlook and for which the folders have their property configured to
be included in the Outlook Address Book, a container indexing the
contact-type folders that are included in this container).
If I configure some other e-mail client than Outlook as the default, the
EXACT error message (which you didn't give) that I see when I click on
Insert Address in the envelope wizard is:
Either there is no default mail client or the current client cannot
fulfill the messaging request. Please run Microsoft Office Outlook
and set it as the default mail client.
This is followed by an error message for Exchange but that's only
because Word failed on the MAPI request to get contact info and so it
falls back to see if it can get at the Exchange address book.
Word is [probably] using MAPI to ask a MAPI-compliant client for its
list of contacts. I doubt Mozilla included MAPI support in Thunderbird
or, if they did, it may only be the simple MAPI support or Tbird doesn't
support the MAPI call to get contact info. You need to use an e-mail
client that can respond to Word's request for contact info. Doesn't
look like Tbird is up to that task.
You'll can export your contact info from Tbird and import into Outlook
but you still run into the problem that Word is trying to use the
*default* e-mail client to respond to its MAPI call for contact info
which pretty much means you would have to make Outlook your default
e-mail client for the envelope wizard to work *IF* you want to use its
Insert Address function.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messaging_Application_Programming_Interface
See description of simple versus extended MAPI.
Outlook EXPRESS (which uses the Windows Address Book) supports simple
MAPI. Yet selecting that as the default e-mail client results in the
same error messages. So simple MAPI is not sufficient to get the
contact info and a full MAPI compliant client is required. That
wouldn't be Thunderbird. Although Internet Options -> Programs lets you
separately configure what handler is defined for the default e-mail
client and for the Contact List (you could have Outlook for one and
Outlook Express for the other), it appears Word only relies on the
default e-mail client to find the contact list. (If I set Outlook
Express as the default for Contact List, the Windows Address Book is NOT
used for Insert Address in Word's envelope wizard.)
Mail Merge is an integration feature between Word and Outlook. There
are other integration features, like the Insert Address function in the
envelope wizard. Not only must you be using Outlook but it must be the
SAME version as Word for the integration to work (while you can have
multiple versions of Word installed, only one version of Outlook can be
installed, and integration fails if Outlook doesn't match Word).
You're trying to use an Office integration feature. Thunderbird is not
an Office component.
http://wordprocessing.about.com/od/wordprocessingsoftware/qt/outlookenv.htm
If you're trying to use Mail Merge (in Word 2010) to print up envelopes,
the data source for addresses can come from Outlook's contacts or a
file. See:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/w...envelopes-for-a-mass-mailing-HA010109160.aspx
See section titled "Connect the envelopes to your address list".