Access Automation Mail Merge

[IHNW]

I'm using the code to create a mail merge from Albert D. Kallal
([email protected]) on
http://www.attcanada.net/~kallal.msn/msaccess/msaccess.html. This code is
FANTASTIC and I give praise to the author.

I've noticed that if you link a datasource directly from Microsoft Word the
merge is relatively quick. Unfortunately, using automation from Access with
large recordsets in excell of 1000 records can take a while to open Word and
start merging the records. It may have to do with Spell-check or other
various tools that are running in Word? Is there a way to speed up the merge
process using automation from Access?

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi =?Utf-8?B?SUhOVw==?=,

I've noticed that if you link a datasource directly from Microsoft Word the
merge is relatively quick. Unfortunately, using automation from Access with
large recordsets in excell of 1000 records can take a while to open Word and
start merging the records. It may have to do with Spell-check or other
various tools that are running in Word? Is there a way to speed up the merge
process using automation from Access?

Generally, automation is slower from an outside application. If Access is
running things, most likely it's also creating an instance of Word? And then
opening a document? Is your code also linking in the data source?

All these actions take time; and things that have already been finished when
you tell Word in the UI to execute a merge.

And are you certain you're using the same connection method in your code as in
the UI? The connection method can also affect the speed with which a mail merge
is processed.

You also need to realize that Word gets slower and slower, the more records you
try to merge. And the slow-down is not linearly proportionate, as you'd might
expect.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

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