Mail Merge hangs

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DV - 11 Apr 2007 18:58 GMT

Hello, I am trying to use the mail merge application with notepad as
the Datasource file. I have around 5000 records in the input file.
After merging 2000 records it hangs.

Is there a limitation in mail merge on the number of records to
merge ? Please suggest me on how to get pass this.

thanks

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Peter Jamieson - 11 Apr 2007 19:32 GMT

There isn't a documented limit, but there have been many reports of limits,
slowdowns and hangs over the years.

The quickest workaround is to divide your data source into several parts and
run one merge for each part.

I'm not sure I can suggest much more than that, but which version of Word &
Windows?

Peter Jamieson

> Hello, I am trying to use the mail merge application with notepad as
> the Datasource file. I have around 5000 records in the input file.
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
>
> thanks

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DV - 11 Apr 2007 19:44 GMT

On Apr 11, 2:32 pm, "Peter Jamieson" <p...@KillmapSpjjnet.demon.co.uk>
wrote:

> There isn't a documented limit, but there have been many reports of limits,
> slowdowns and hangs over the years.
[quoted text clipped - 17 lines]
>
> - Show quoted text -

I am using MS Word 2002 and Windows XP Professional.

I have about 25,000 records to merge. It would be a lot of work to
split into 25 parts and run each. Can anything be done to run
everything once ?

thanks

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Peter Jamieson - 11 Apr 2007 19:57 GMT

> I have about 25,000 records to merge. It would be a lot of work to
> split into 25 parts and run each. Can anything be done to run
> everything once ?

If I knew "The Answer", I would tell you!

OK, so you might be able to avoid actually splitting the file but split the
merge by running records 1-1000 first, then 1001-2000, and so on. If you
know VBA you could fairly quickly write a macro to do that.

Do you also have Access? If so, it may be worth creating an Access database
and importing the records into a new table, then using that as the data
source.

However, if the problem lies in the Mail Merge Main Document rather than the
data source, neither of those things will help anyway. It may be worth
trying your 25000 merge with a much simpler document to rule out the
possibility that it's related to the size/complexity of the document.

Peter Jamieson

> On Apr 11, 2:32 pm, "Peter Jamieson" <p...@KillmapSpjjnet.demon.co.uk>
> wrote:
[quoted text clipped - 30 lines]
>
> thanks

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