[Rob]

Is there a way to force Word to begin printing before completing the full
merge?

If I merge from a spreadsheet of about 300 or so, each recipient is merged
before printing starts and it takes about 1 second for each recipient to
merge. This means for 300 it takes 5 minutes. I have spreadsheets with 700
or more recipients, which will take far too long before the print begins.
I can speed this up dramatically by merging to PDF, but I think Word should
be able to do this better (like Word Perfect).

Rob

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

Check the Background Print setting under ToolsOptionsPrint.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

"Rob" none wrote in message ...
Is there a way to force Word to begin printing before completing the full
merge?

If I merge from a spreadsheet of about 300 or so, each recipient is merged
before printing starts and it takes about 1 second for each recipient to
merge. This means for 300 it takes 5 minutes. I have spreadsheets with
700 or more recipients, which will take far too long before the print
begins.
I can speed this up dramatically by merging to PDF, but I think Word
should be able to do this better (like Word Perfect).

Rob

[Rob]

Thanks for you reply Doug, but I did check that and it's ticked. It still
merges everything before printing. If I untick the check box it makes no
difference.

Rob

"Doug Robbins - Word MVP" wrote in message
...
Check the Background Print setting under ToolsOptionsPrint.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

"Rob" none wrote in message
...
Is there a way to force Word to begin printing before completing the full
merge?

If I merge from a spreadsheet of about 300 or so, each recipient is
merged before printing starts and it takes about 1 second for each
recipient to merge. This means for 300 it takes 5 minutes. I have
spreadsheets with 700 or more recipients, which will take far too long
before the print begins.
I can speed this up dramatically by merging to PDF, but I think Word
should be able to do this better (like Word Perfect).

Rob

[Peter Jamieson]

One problem with Word mailmerge is that when it merges to printer, it merges
everything as a sinlge jo (i.e. if it merged each letter to a new job this
problem, and some others, would probably go away).

The only thing I can suggest is that you ensure that your Printer Driver's
Properties|Advanced are set to "Start printing immediately". However, as far
as I know, that's already the default. I suppose you could set "print
directly to the printer" but I suspect that that's a bad idea these days.

Peter Jamieson

"Rob" none wrote in message ...
Thanks for you reply Doug, but I did check that and it's ticked. It
still merges everything before printing. If I untick the check box it
makes no difference.

Rob

"Doug Robbins - Word MVP" wrote in message
...
Check the Background Print setting under ToolsOptionsPrint.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

"Rob" none wrote in message
...
Is there a way to force Word to begin printing before completing the
full merge?

If I merge from a spreadsheet of about 300 or so, each recipient is
merged before printing starts and it takes about 1 second for each
recipient to merge. This means for 300 it takes 5 minutes. I have
spreadsheets with 700 or more recipients, which will take far too long
before the print begins.
I can speed this up dramatically by merging to PDF, but I think Word
should be able to do this better (like Word Perfect).

Rob

[Rob]

Thanks Peter, but DARN!!

And I thought Word was so much more superior to WordPerfect....silly me!

Rob

"Peter Jamieson" wrote in message
...
One problem with Word mailmerge is that when it merges to printer, it
merges everything as a sinlge jo (i.e. if it merged each letter to a new
job this problem, and some others, would probably go away).

The only thing I can suggest is that you ensure that your Printer Driver's
Properties|Advanced are set to "Start printing immediately". However, as
far as I know, that's already the default. I suppose you could set "print
directly to the printer" but I suspect that that's a bad idea these days.

Peter Jamieson

"Rob" none wrote in message
...
Thanks for you reply Doug, but I did check that and it's ticked. It
still merges everything before printing. If I untick the check box it
makes no difference.

Rob

"Doug Robbins - Word MVP" wrote in message
...
Check the Background Print setting under ToolsOptionsPrint.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

"Rob" none wrote in message
...
Is there a way to force Word to begin printing before completing the
full merge?

If I merge from a spreadsheet of about 300 or so, each recipient is
merged before printing starts and it takes about 1 second for each
recipient to merge. This means for 300 it takes 5 minutes. I have
spreadsheets with 700 or more recipients, which will take far too long
before the print begins.
I can speed this up dramatically by merging to PDF, but I think Word
should be able to do this better (like Word Perfect).

Rob