Word freezes during email merge

[KT]

I'm trying to send a mail merge to about 500 emails off of an Excel
spreadsheet. Unfortunately, every time I do this, it will send out a small
handful of emails (not necessarily in any order) and then Word will freeze.
This only happens when I select HTML and not plain text (though of course
plain text forces you to ok every email, so that is not an option either). Is
there a patch for this? Has anyone else encountered this issue? I am using
Word, Excel, and Outlook 2007. Does it have anything to do with what mode
they are saved in? This has only started happening in the last few months.
Thanks for your help!

 

[Peter Jamieson]

I hope this will help:

--------------

This is a follow-up for those people who reported problems with Word
2007 e-mail mailmerges to Outlook hanging after an arbitrary number of
emails have been sent.

There is a hotfix dated October 28, 2008 at

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957692

(The problem is described as:

<<
Word 2007 may stop responding when you use Mail Merge to send
personalized e-mail messages to an e-mail address list that contains a
large amount of recipients, such as 10,000 recipients.)

I haven't tried the hotfix myself, but was unable to recreate the problem.

 

[KT]

Unfortunately, I downloaded and installed the fix and it has not resolved the
problem. There were only 200 or so emails on the list and it will send out
anywhere from 1 - 7 emails before freezing.
Thanks for the help, though.

 

[Sheila]

I'm working with Vista and Office 2007. Previously had McAffee installed,
and the merged worked fine. But McAffee is such a resource hog, I switched
to Avast, and now the system overall runs faster, but the email merge hangs!

I installed the hot fix offered by MS and it did no good.

This is working for me now:

Confirm all emails in my database are valid.
Turned off email scanning in Avast.
Selected "Work offline" in Outlook.
Walk away from the computer! (The process seems less likely to hang if I
don’t do anything else while Word is merging.)
Do mail merge, let all the emails go to the outbox, then unselect "Work
offline" in Outlook.

Now, since I've used MS products for long enough to know that a fix isn't
always a 100 cure, I do a couple of things to save me some trouble:

Access database contains queries that break down my 1800 contacts into
smaller groups; in my case, by city.

Before I start the merge, I sort the contacts alphabetically, so it's
easier to uncheck them if it does freeze and I have to start all over.

Sheila

 

[sheila]

Prior post seemed to be a temporary fix. After a couple of times, Word began
freezing again.

IF YOUR EMAIL ADDRESSES ARE IN **ACCESS**, try this:

Open the database you want to use in Access. Open the query or table where
the email addresses are located (in my case, a query).

Click the tab for "External Data," and choose "More." Choose "Merge it with
Microsoft Word."

Select either an existing document or create new, whichever applies to your
situation. You'll either choose your existing document and Word will open or
Word will open for you to create a new document. Either way, Word will
display the 'wizard' options on the right side of your screen.

Choose Email messages and then Next.

Choose whichever option is right for your situation -- Use current, Start
from template, or Start from existing ... choose Next.

This opens the Choose List menu, still on the right side of your Word
screen. Since you opened Word from Access, the list you started with is
named in the menu. You can choose a different list or edit the list from
here, if you want. Choose Next.

Preview your emails, if you want, then choose Next again. Note: The option
is "Next, Complete the merge," but you'll still have a chance to insert your
subject line on the next screen.

Choose "Electronic Mail" to open the Merge to Email pop up. Choose the
field where your email addresses are located from the drop down; add a
subject line; choose the format for your email. You can also choose to have
the merge send to all, some, or one contact from your list. I choose All.
Click OK, and the merge begins.

Besides not hanging up, I noticed that the merge goes super-fast. If you
watch the Word screen, bottom right-hand corner, when I begin my merge in
Word, each "save" takes a second or two. When I begin my merge in Access,
following thse steps, each "save" takes a fraction of a second.

Note: Haven't tried it with my antiVirus running, but I forgot to take
Outlook to offline mode, and it ran great.

 

[At College]

Helped 2 users with this same problem. Both WinXP Sp3, Office 2007.
On one the hotfix from microsoft remediated the problem. Hot fix:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957692

On the other the hot fix didn't help. But this user got mail merge to email
working by NOT using the buttons on the Mailings ribbon. Instead she used the
Step by Step Mail Merge Wizard and was able to send out over 500 emails
without a hitch.
Never would have thought of this fix!

 

[Davo]

Helped 2 users with this same problem. Both WinXP Sp3, Office 2007.
On one the hotfix from microsoft remediated the problem. Hot fix:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957692

On the other the hot fix didn't help. But this user got mail merge to email
working by NOT using the buttons on the Mailings ribbon. Instead she used the
Step by Step Mail Merge Wizard and was able to send out over 500 emails
without a hitch.
Never would have thought of this fix!

This worked for me... how strange....