Although I probably can't test your scenario, which version of Word, what is
the data source, how are you connecting to it, how many records are in the
data source, how many are you selecting and how are you doing the selection?
Are you using any DATABASE fields?

I suspect the first things I would try would be to extract the records as a
separate step, preferably to another table in the same database, and attempt
the merge using that. If that worked OK, I might try to create a view that
did the same selection and use that as the data source.

Peter Jamieson