Any explanation an assitance would be greatly appreciated.

I have an excel [2000] file that I use to generate a mail merge data set for
word.
Using VBA, I create a excel file with one [1] sheet, then open word, and an
existing mail merge document with all the fields.  I then relink the merge
document to the new data file and merge.  

This all works but takes approx. 1 minute to the file, and another minute to
relink the new data file.  If I open the document through word manually, it
only takes about 3-5 seconds to open the word document, similar to relink.

Can someone first explain the time lag, and/or how to fix it?

Thanks
Simon