Merge gets lost ...?

[TerryC]

Hi all,

Word 2002 SP3
Win 2k SP4

I am doing a large merge with a tab delimited text file as a data source.
80,000 records.

I merge the first 6000 records to the printer without a problem.
I attempt to merge the next 6000 records and after 1800 records the merge
document starts to scroll through all records several times to merge each
additional record (this means a minute or two per record). Any suggestions on
what might be causing this and how to overcome the problem would be
appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Terry

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

I can't really help with the cause of the problem or its direct solution,
but to split up the data source into say 5,000 record chunks and perform the
merge of the data from each chunk separately may take less time than you are
presently experiencing.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[TerryC]

Doug,

Thanks for your response, even if it wasn't what I wanted to hear.

I suppose I'm back to access and 16 exports to get the job out this time.

Is there a different connection method used by the later version(s) of Word
to connect to txt files. I recall doing large merges in Word 97 100,000+
records without any problems. The later version seems to spend a lot of time
scrolling through the data (to no benefit or apparent reason).

If anyone else has a any suggestions I would like to hear them as these
types of merges do come up from time to time and having some reliability
would be nice.

Thanks again Doug,

Terry

 

[TerryC]

Some follow up information.

I exported two lots of 40000 records to excel format and connected to these
as data sources and everything appears much better behaved, quicker and more
stable. Pity Excel doesn't support more than 64k rows.

Thanks to all for taking the time to read this far.

Terry

 

[Graham Mayor]

Set tools > options > general > confirm conversions at open.

You should be able to force Word to use the old DOS text converter (download
from my web site if you don't have it) by renaming the *.txt file to *.asc.,
You will get a security warning when you select the converter. (Do not use
this
converter to save the file with the ASC extension from Word, use the Word
plain text converter and name the file with the ASC extension)

You can force an alternative connection by selecting the file (either asc or
txt) and pick OLE-DB database files. Enter your delimiters at the prompts.

This will give you a variety of alternatives to try with your text files.
Whether any of them will achieve an improvement in speed I hesitate to
guess. It'll cost nothing but time to try it

--
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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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[TerryC]

Thanks Graham

Set tools > options > general > confirm conversions at open.

You should be able to force Word to use the old DOS text converter (download
from my web site if you don't have it) by renaming the *.txt file to *.asc.,
You will get a security warning when you select the converter. (Do not use
this
converter to save the file with the ASC extension from Word, use the Word
plain text converter and name the file with the ASC extension)

You can force an alternative connection by selecting the file (either asc or
txt) and pick OLE-DB database files. Enter your delimiters at the prompts.

This will give you a variety of alternatives to try with your text files.
Whether any of them will achieve an improvement in speed I hesitate to
guess. It'll cost nothing but time to try it

--
<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
Graham Mayor - Word MVP


<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>

 

[TerryC]

To finish this thread off.

I set the "confirm conversions at open" and selected the OLE-DB connection
(see Graham's post below for details). The connection is much more stable and
records can be navigated to without waiting minutes at a time. The merging
works as you would expect and at a good speed.

I would recommend this setup for anyone using delimited text files in Word
merges.

Thanks to all (particularly Graham) for your input.

Terry