Merging and speed

[patty.mcsweeney]

In the past I used Crystal reports to create a mailing and then
delivered pdf output to my customer. It works okay, but I thought I
could take myself out of the picture if I setup a Word merge for them
to run instead.

The problem is that the Word merge is increbibly slow and locks up my
pc for about 15-20 minutes. My pc is a Pentium(R) 4 cpu, 2.80 GHz,
2.79 GHz with1 GB RAM. If that happens with my PC there is no way the
customer can use the merge.

Here's my info:
Data file:
~ 4,000 record .txt (comma separated or bar separated or tab
separated) file
Each record contains 12 fields.
One field is used twice on the merge form and another is used 3
times.

My configuration is
Window XP (SP 2)
Office 2003 (SP 2)

In Word, I have turned off pagination, and am using a Normal view.

Have tried turning off ALL other apps when running as well.

Saw some notes about speed issues with merging txt files. Converted
import file to a .xls to see if that helped, but it did not. Just as
slow.


Any ideas on how to speedup the process, or is this just the way Word
Merges work?

Thanks!
Patty

I had been planning on doing some if statements to prettyup the data
on the form... but now I am wondering if that is going to make a bad
situation worse...

 

[Graham Mayor]

Are you saying that it takes 15-20 minutes for Word to merge your letter to
4000 PDF documents? Have you timed the production of one PDF document? 15 to
20 minutes does not seem outrageous to me. You could use the add-in at
http://www.gmayor.com/individual_merge_letters.htm to create the PDF files,
though frankly I cannot see it being any quicker. PDF production is quite
complex and takes time.

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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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[patty.mcsweeney]

In my quest to be clear, I guess I was not... sorry about that... My
OLD process was to create a pdf using Crystal. I only created the pdf
because the users do not have Crystal. But they do have Office, so I
am just trying to do a straight Word Merge to produce Word letters, no
pdf.

Not having done Word Merges before, I really have no concept as to
what is normal or not. I did not expect to have to shut down all
other applications and then to have my machine to lock up for an
extended period. Is this normal?

I do have one more thing that I forgot to add about my form though -
it has a table. I don't know if that is an issue. I have made sure
that Table/Table Properties/Options/Auto Resize is off.

Thanks,
P

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

I guess the users will have to weigh up the option of putting up with you or
having to put up with 15 to 20 minutes to create 4,000 letters.

You would have to be something special <G, D & R VVF>

--
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

 

[Graham Mayor]

Without seeing your merge document it is difficult to guess how long it
should take. Where are you merging to? Both PDF and Printer destinations
would be time consuming. Merging 4000 records to a new document might be
faster, but a 4000 page document can get a bit sluggish. Have you tried
splitting the data into batches of (say) 500 or 1000 records?

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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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