Access 2003 to Word 2003 Mailmerge very slow

[InvisibleDuncan]

I'm in the process of upgrading an Access 97 application to Access 2003. This
has mostly been pretty smooth, but I'm having major problems with a process
that generates mailmerge documents (also moving from Word 97 to Word 2003).

Taking a specific example, my initial connection string (Access 97 to Word
97) was:

objDoc.MailMerge.OpenDataSource Name:=CurrentDb.Name, OpenExclusive:=False,
LinkToSource:=True, _
AddToRecentFiles:=False, Connection:="TABLE " & strTableName

This wasn't working at all in Access 2003 - every time it tried, it popped
up a dialog box asking me to select the table. I found the reason for that in
this article (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/289830), and
therefore changed my code to:

objDoc.MailMerge.OpenDataSource Name:=CurrentDb.Name, OpenExclusive:=False,
LinkToSource:=True, _
AddToRecentFiles:=False, SQLStatement:="Select * From " & strTableName, _
SubType:=wdMergeSubTypeWord2000

This now works in Access 2003, but it's appallingly slow. Whereas before it
would take maybe five seconds to apply the connection string and execute the
mailmerge, it is now taking up to two minutes. This is bad enough for one
document, but this is part of a batch process that runs overnight and
involves several hundred mail merges.

This looks like it might put the kibosh on us upgrading to 2003, which would
be a real nuisance. Does anyone have any way around it?

Thanks...

 

[Arvin Meyer [MVP]]

Have a look at Tony Toew's performance FAQ, for suggestions:

http://www.granite.ab.ca/access/performancefaq.htm

 

[InvisibleDuncan]

Thanks for the suggestion, Arvin. Unfortunately, my problem isn't covered
there at all.

 

[a a r o n . k e m p f]

Access just isn't a decent solution for anything.

Move this to SQL Server and use Reporting Services 2008 for mail
merge.

It's free, fast and fantastic

 

[David W. Fenton]

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This looks like it might put the kibosh on us upgrading to 2003,
which would be a real nuisance. Does anyone have any way around
it?

Have you tried Albert Kallal's word merge utility?

http://www.members.shaw.ca/AlbertKallal/msaccess/msaccess.html

 

[Mark Andrews]

I always use Albert Kallal's word merge code
http://www.members.shaw.ca/AlbertKallal/msaccess/msaccess.html

works with all version of access and word (with a few very small tweaks)
for example: it might be only reading .doc files instead of .doc and .docx
files.

HTH,

 

[De Jager]

message
Access just isn't a decent solution for anything.

Move this to SQL Server and use Reporting Services 2008 for mail
merge.

It's free, fast and fantastic