This question pops up from time to time. The main possibilities are as
follows - (c) has definitely worked in other cases:
a. have a good look at the printer driver options, and see if there is any
way you can trigger the stapling action by, e.g. specifying that page or
perhaps the last page comes from a different bin. I doubt it, but worth
looking.
b. if you have a detailed technical manual for the printer that tells you
what sequence to send to trigger the stapling action, you may be able to put
that sequence into a { PRINT } field at the beginning or end of your
document. Again, PRINT only works in certain circumstances so it's a long
shot. You might also be able to work out what control sequence or postscript
code is used to trigger stapling by checking the "print to file" option in
File|Print and comparing the output of "stapled" and "non-stapled" documents
in e.g. Notepad. Also a long shot. You may find with Word XP you can issue
the corrct sequence in some way using Word Mailmerge events.
c. Instead of doing one merge for all the records in your data source, use
VBA to do one merge for each record in your data source. You should then see
one print job per packet rather than a 1500 page print job. Some starting
point code is as follows - you may find see the Print dialog for each merge,
depending on the version of Word. If your merge processes multiple source
data records per packet you will obviously need to modify the source code.

Sub OneMergePerSourceRec()
'

' NB, needs bettor error management and doubtless other things a VBA expert
' will point out.

Dim intSourceRecord
Dim objMerge As Word.MailMerge
Dim strOutputDocumentName As String
Dim TerminateMerge As Boolean

' Need to set up this object as the ActiveDocument changes when the
' merge is performed. Besides, it's clearer.

Set objMerge = ActiveDocument.MailMerge
With objMerge

' If no data source has been defined, do it here using OpenDataSource.
' But if it is already defined in the document, you should not need to
define it here.

'  .OpenDataSource _
'    Name:="whatever"

 intSourceRecord = 1
 TerminateMerge = False

 Do Until TerminateMerge
   .DataSource.ActiveRecord = intSourceRecord

   ' if we have gone past the end (and possibly, if there are no records)
   ' then the Activerecord will not be what we have just tried to set it to

   If .DataSource.ActiveRecord <> intSourceRecord Then
     TerminateMerge = True
   ' the record exists
   Else

     .DataSource.FirstRecord = intSourceRecord
     .DataSource.LastRecord = intSourceRecord
     .Destination = wdSendToPrinter
     .Execute
     intSourceRecord = intSourceRecord + 1
   End If
 Loop
End With
End Sub

d. Perform the merge to an output file and print each section in turn - you
would need to change this if you have more than one section in your mail
merge main document.

Sub PrintEachSection()
Dim iSectionCount As Integer
For iSectionCount = 1 To ActiveDocument.Sections.Count
   ActiveDocument.PrintOut Range:=wdPrintFromTo, From:="s" & iSectionCount,
To:="s" & iSectionCount
Next iSectionCount
End Sub

--
Peter Jamieson