Mail Merge NIGHTMARE

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Liz Hopkins - 04 Mar 2004 19:28 GMT

Using Word '03 on XP machine. Printing across network*
to HP d135 served on ME machine.

My mail merge document takes 10 minutes or more per 2
page letter to print.

Tried moving file to ME machine but Word's
incompatibility with even other versions of Word
prevented that. I didn't even get characters in the
printout when I did that, just ribbons of apparently
randomly distributed black ink.

I tried to work around this "issue" by merging to
separate document using the "edit individual letters"
option. However, Word now refuses to print the new
document and crashes every time I try. I even tried
cutting and pasting into a new document, but it STILL
wouldn't print.

Is there a patch for this? I'd really like to have one
week that isn't massively extended by Microsoft's
hideously buggy (or should that be "issue"-ey
or "undocumented feature" laden?) software.

*for now. We're going to have to move the printer to my
machine, essentially totally reconfiguring our very small
network in order to deal with this "issue," something I
really wanted to avoid having to do.

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Doug Robbins - Word MVP - DELETE UPPERCASE CHARACTERS FROM EMAIL ADDRESS - 04 Mar 2004 23:25 GMT

I think that this is probably more of a network printing issue than
mailmerge. I assume that you have tried executing the mailmerge to a new
document and then print that document. If you have a problem that way, it
is not a mailmerge issue as the document produced by executing a mailmerge
in that way is no different from a document that you could create manually.

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Please post any further questions or followup to the newsgroups for the
benefit of others who may be interested. Unsolicited questions forwarded
directly to me will only be answered on a paid consulting basis.

Hope this helps
Doug Robbins - Word MVP

> Using Word '03 on XP machine. Printing across network*
> to HP d135 served on ME machine.
[quoted text clipped - 24 lines]
> network in order to deal with this "issue," something I
> really wanted to avoid having to do.

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Liz Hopkins - 05 Mar 2004 16:00 GMT

Thanks for getting back to me :)

I tried merging to a new document. I even tried merging
to a new document and then copying and pasting into
another new document. The computer still flat-out
refused to print the new document. Other network print
jobs do not do this. It's definitely the mail merge.

I agree, it shouldn't be different, which is why this is
such a weird problem.

>-----Original Message-----
>I think that this is probably more of a network printing issue than
[quoted text clipped - 33 lines]
>
>.

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Doug Robbins - Word MVP - DELETE UPPERCASE CHARACTERS FROM EMAIL ADDRESS - 05 Mar 2004 22:53 GMT

What happens if you try and print the mailmerge main document?

Did you reply to the original thread (which is what you should do) or is
this newsgroup not threading the replies correctly?

Signature

> Thanks for getting back to me :)
>
[quoted text clipped - 62 lines]
>>
>>.

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RWN - 07 Mar 2004 03:10 GMT

Not an expert, but;
Do you have the printer driver installed on the local machine?

At work we have multiple versions of Word/Os's and anytime we've had
print problems it was when the printer driver was not installed on the
machine.
These problems manifested themselves in many ways (garbage print, wrong
trays selected etc etc.).

Signature

Regards;
Rob
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Doug Robbins - Word MVP - DELETE UPPERCASE CHARACTERS FROM EMAIL
ADDRESS" <dkr@mOSTvALUABLEpROFESSIONALs.org> wrote in message
news:OxSowgwAEHA.2800@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...

> What happens if you try and print the mailmerge main document?
>
[quoted text clipped - 67 lines]
> >>
> >>.

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- 09 Mar 2004 15:02 GMT

Wow, so many responses, thanks.

In answer:
-Main document: With one of the documents for the
mailing, I had to give up on the merge and revert the
main document (it was a form, so it could still be used
without the merge fields, but it wasn't as cool). It did
revert successfully to a normal file (a HUGE surprise to
me, since it was the first thing Office '03 had done that
it said it would).
-Threading: I responded to the answer, since I was
answering questions in your post. Sorry if that was the
wrong way to do it; I didn't know that but I do now. I
don't know what the others on the thread did, but this
forum is presumably using Microsoft softare, so my first
guess would be that it's not threading properly.
-Yes, the driver is installed on the local machine, but
Office '03/Win XP has a problem with the (ostensibly
Microsoft approved for XP) HP Officejet d135 driver.
-This is an itty-bitty (two machines) network, so we're
going to move the printer to the more powerful machine
and see if it helps any, though I believe that it is
Office '03's fault and the last response reinforces
this. It's enough to make you wonder if they put
these "issues" in there to sell upgrades.

The merge went out. It took two days to print
everything, or at least the merge document that we
managed to print. We gave up on the other one. Yet
another week massively extended by MS Incompetence. I
actually had another issue with hidden formatting that
would have taken about 30 seconds to pin down and fix in
WordPerfect, but took all day in Word. Wow, I so wish
they'd _really_ eliminated the Microsoft monopoly.

My question TO MICROSOFT is, will there ever be a patch
for this mail merge printing issue? (I doubt it.)

>-----Original Message-----
>Using Word '03 on XP machine. Printing across network*
[quoted text clipped - 26 lines]
>really wanted to avoid having to do.
>.

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RWN - 10 Mar 2004 00:02 GMT

Still not an expert, but;

In my wanderings around the various ng's I've seen many references to
problems with HP printers.
I won't pretend to know why but would suggest that perhaps you
download/install the driver from HP. I believe they have a
function at the site to advise you if your driver is up to date.

OTOH, after trolling through the messages on this ng it appears as if
others have encountered similar problems, some going '97 to XP and up.
Think maybe I'll stick to 2k!

HTH

Signature

Regards;
Rob
------------------------------------------------------------------------
<snipped> for brevity.
-Yes, the driver is installed on the local machine, but

> Office '03/Win XP has a problem with the (ostensibly
> Microsoft approved for XP) HP Officejet d135 driver.

Reply to this Message

- 19 Mar 2004 15:34 GMT

Wow, all the posts that mention the Office '03 issue with
printing mail merges (except for one of mine) are missing
now. How very telling. Guess I shouldn't hold my breath
for that patch then.

Still going to try moving the printer today &
reinstalling drivers for the nth time, as this machine
is a bit more powerful, but I somehow doubt that it will
make a significant difference in mail merge printing time.

P.S. Tried HP's driver currency widget on the machine
serving the printer and the driver on our CD is current
(it came with a replacement printer, so it would be). I
also downloaded all the available updates to both
machines. However, the most recent update for that
particular driver predates Office '03.

>-----Original Message-----
>Using Word '03 on XP machine. Printing across network*
[quoted text clipped - 26 lines]
>really wanted to avoid having to do.
>.

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