merge failed

[Kevin]

When merging a large database from outlook to create
mailing labels word stops responding. I end up closing
word through task manager and when I do I get a
message "merge failed".

Typically this is over 800 contacts and in some cases
over 6000 contacts. Merge seems to work up to about 700
contacts, but after that the process stops and it is very
frustrating to our users when they try to send out any
mailings.

We are using various configurations of computers but all
are running a network installed version of Office XP with
SP 2. I am using a Pentium 2.4 GHz with 512 RAM on a Dell
PC.

I have Office 2003 at home and have imported the same
contacts into outlook 2003 and this merge worked
perfectly with 3300 contacts. I understand the merge also
worked flawlessly in Office 2000 as well. What did
Microsoft do different in office xp?

Please help
Thank you,
Kevin

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi Kevin,

Is the merge being sent to a new document, or directly to
the printer? If the latter, try going to a new document,
first, then printing that.

When merging a large database from outlook to create
mailing labels word stops responding. I end up closing
word through task manager and when I do I get a
message "merge failed".

Typically this is over 800 contacts and in some cases
over 6000 contacts. Merge seems to work up to about 700
contacts, but after that the process stops and it is very
frustrating to our users when they try to send out any
mailings.

We are using various configurations of computers but all
are running a network installed version of Office XP with
SP 2. I am using a Pentium 2.4 GHz with 512 RAM on a Dell
PC.

I have Office 2003 at home and have imported the same
contacts into outlook 2003 and this merge worked
perfectly with 3300 contacts. I understand the merge also
worked flawlessly in Office 2000 as well. What did
Microsoft do different in office xp?

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Sep
30 2003)
http://www.mvps.org/word

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any
follow question or reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail

 

[kevin]

Hi Cindy,

Thanks for responding. I am merging to a new document,
although I have also tried merging to a template.

Kevin

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi Kevin,

Thanks for responding. I am merging to a new document,
although I have also tried merging to a template.

I assume you meant to say you've also tried merging directly
to the printer...

Apparently, we're dealing with a configuration issue, here.
The question now becomes, is the problem limited to Outlook
data sources, or does it occur with any data source that
has more than n records.

If you export the OUTLOOK contact data to delimited text
file and to Excel (*.xls) format and merge to that, do you
see the same problem?

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Sep
30 2003)
http://www.mvps.org/word

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any
follow question or reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail

 

[Guest]

Yes it is apparently just with outlook data sources
created with outlook. Since I posted this I have actually
been able export the outlook contacts to both Excel and
Access and have successfully done a 7000 contact mail
merge through Word. So even though my users can't compile
the data source directly from outlook there is a work
around that gives us other options until I can find out
why the outlook data source is not working.

Thanks for your responses. After the holidays I'll tackle
this issue again. I would be interested to hear your
thoughts on this also.

Kevin

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Yes it is apparently just with outlook data sources

created with outlook. Since I posted this I have actually
been able export the outlook contacts to both Excel and
Access and have successfully done a 7000 contact mail
merge through Word. So even though my users can't compile
the data source directly from outlook there is a work
around that gives us other options until I can find out
why the outlook data source is not working.

Thanks for your responses. After the holidays I'll tackle
this issue again. I would be interested to hear your
thoughts on this also.

Interesting. My thought is that the converter or the virtual
file is choking on the number of records, for some reason.
Word never links up to an Outlook list directly, it uses a
converter to generate a delimited text file as the data
source. Word->Outlook since version 2002 uses a different
converter than Outlook->Word, so the problem may
configuration-specific.

I'd say it would be best to pursue this in an OUTLOOK
newsgroup, as the people there usually have a much better
grasp of what's actually going on "under the hood" when
email is involved.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Sep
30 2003)
http://www.mvps.org/word

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any
follow question or reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail