Mail merge speed/reliability issues

As a company we regularly conduct mail merges for anywhere from 50 to 3000 data records within InDesign. We merge to a document with 3/4 layers and 3/4 linked images (but this isn't the cause of the speed issues as it is still slow when these are removed). However, the merge crashes InDesign when using text files of more than 500 data records. This means we have to do all large mail merges in batches of ~250 to maintain system performance. NB, we do use fairly high-spec machines - does anyone know if InDesign mail merges tend to require VERY high spec-machines?
If anyone has any suggestions for performing mail merges (from text files or MS Access) using InDesign I would greatly appreciate them? Any plug-ins specifically intended for mail merges or even better just some tips on machine spec and InDesign/data settings?
Many thanks

Some questions:
Which version of office were you using before? 2003?
Are the data files on a network, or on your local machine? If they are on a network, can you make a copy of one of them on your local machine and try again?
Can you open the files directly in Excel? What extension do they have (.xls, or something else?) I am wondering whether access to other file types has been left blocked on your machine but is allowed on your colleague's machine.
Are you just opening the mail merge main document and seeing this message? If so, do you see the same thing if you start with a new document and try to connect to one of these data sources?
Can you confirm that the message is about Access even though you are trying to connect to an Excel file?
(Also, office 2007 has some new stuff - that let's you specify that certain folders are "trusted" . I don't think that ever affected MailMerge but it may be as well to make sure that your documents and data sources are in trusted locations).
Also worth trying to start Word in "Safe mode" - see, e.g. http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/word-help/work-with-office-safe-modes-HP010140792.aspx
Peter Jamieson

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Looping in Word mail merges/ checking for missing fields

I am trying to convert a project that uses WordPerfect merges to use Word mail merges. One issue that I am encountering is that I cannot find a way to use any looping structures in Word mail merges. Specifically, my data file is a csv text file.
I control the contents of the file but its current structure is that it will consist of a single record (not counting the header row). The number of fields will vary but it will contain a field named Person1. There may or may not be a field named
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For clarification: In a Word mailmerge, if any of the field headers are missing from the data source, you will get an error. Thus, you can't have a mailmerge main document that references «Plaintiff2» or «Defendant2» and not have the corresponding headers
in the data source. The fields may be empty, but the headers must exist.
Re 1:
You can indeed use an IF test along the lines of:
{IF«Defendant2»= "" "Defendant is" "Defendants are"}
or:
{IF{MERGEFIELD Defendant2}= "" "Defendant is" "Defendants are"}
Re 2a:
Creating a list is as simple as inserting the mergefields one after the other:
«Defendant1»
«Defendant2»
«Defendant3»
This will, of course, result in empty lines when fields have no data. To cater for this, Word provides the mergefield \b and \f switches.Given you can have one or more defendants, you could suppress the extra lines via, say, an \b switch:
1. select the
«Defendant2» field and press Shift-F9 so that you get {MERGEFIELD Defendant2};
2. edit the field code so that you get {MERGEFIELD Defendant2 \b "¶
3. delete the paragraph break or line break after the field, so you get:
«Defendant1»
{MERGEFIELD Defendant2 \b "¶
"}«Defendant3»
where ¶ is a real paragraph/line break
4. Do the same for the «Defendant3» field and so on, till all are done.
The following construction can be used to manage data where one or more related fields («Defendant2», «Defendant3», «Defendant4», «Defendant5», & «Defendant6») may or may not be populated, so you can get commas before all except the last in a multi-defendant
sequence, which is preceded by 'and'.
«Defendant1»{IF«Defendant3»= "" " and «Defendant2»" ", «Defendant2»{IF«Defendant4»= "" " and «Defendant3»" ", «Defendant3»{IF«Defendant5»= "" " and «Defendant4»" ", «Defendant4»{IF«Defendant6»= "" " and «Defendant5»" ", «Defendant5» and «Defendant6»"}"}"}"}
Note: It is assumed that none of the fields after the first empty one will be populated.
Re 2b:
It's not clear what you're after here. However, in addition to using an IF field as per 1, above, they can also be used to conditionally output multiple pages, including text, tables and images, together with additional mergefeilds on those pages. For example:
{IF«Defendant2»= "" "«Defendant2» is a nasty fellow ... plus the rest of defendant 2's content & mergefields"}
Note: The field brace pairs (i.e. '{ }') for the above examples are created in the document itself, via Ctrl-F9 (Cmd-F9 on a Mac); you can't simply type them or copy & paste them from this message. Nor is it practicable to add them via
any of the standard Word dialogues. Likewise, you can't type or copy & paste the chevrons (i.e. '« »') - they're part of the actual mergefields, which you can insert from the mailmerge toolbar. The spaces represented in the field construction are all required.
Instead of the ¶, you should use real line/paragraph breaks.
For more Word mailmerge tips, see:
http://www.msofficeforums.com/mail-merge/21803-mailmerge-tips-tricks.html . That page also includes a macro for turning the above field representations into working field codes.
Cheers
Paul Edstein
[MS MVP - Word]

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Mail merge issue

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I am trying to do a mail merge in Word 2008 for Mac and receive this message when I try to open the Excel file for the data. Can someone please help? I tried changing the filename to .xls (originally .xlsx) but it didn't work.

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OK, I tried to get some help a couple of days ago in the Numbers discussion pages but apparently the invoice I'm trying to create won't work. (At least, no one has replied to the other post.)
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Thank you for the reply - the video was very helpful!
AnaMusic wrote:
Perhaps this > http://macmost.com/using-mail-merge-in-pages.html
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I have just converted from Word 2007 to 2013 and now I am having an issue with my mail merge document. My mail merge document has our company letterhead set up in the header/footer. When I finish the mail merge by selecting 'Edit Individual Documents' using
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Hi,
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Office 2010 mail merge with section breaks printing problem

Afternoon all,
We have an issue and I was wondering if anyelse has come across this and has a solution
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John,
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Apple has removed over 90 features from Pages 5.
http://www.freeforum101.com/iworktipsntrick/viewforum.php?f=22&sid=3527487677f0c 6fa05b6297cd00f8eb9&mforum=iworktipsntrick
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Hello,
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I'm sure glad someone seems to be having success finding work arounds...
I'm running Vista SP1, Office 2007 SP1, Acrobat Standard 8.1.5
I am trying to merge a newletter with an address list to PDF files which I then bulk send to print because I get labeled and stapled mail ready documents as output. The source merge file is DOC (2003 compatible) and I have tried saving it as a DOCx file as well.
Very mixed results with no rhyme or reason... frequently end with the ""Word experienced a serious problem with the 'acrobat pdfmaker office com addin' add-in..."
I find no weird characters to remove, running the review feature first didn't help...
This is not the first time I have used this process, nor the first time I've had this issue... Please Find Us Help!
Today's list has 106 names and addresses on it.
I try to merge the entire list... error, Serious prob... disable, No; Serious prob... disable, No; Word auto saved changes to NORMAL.DOT, Load it? No; Exit Word, Save Changes to DOC, NO; Reopen Merge DOC
I merge records 1 - 5 ... success, Exit Word, Reopen Merge DOC
I merge records 6 - 20 ... success, Exit Word, Reopen Merge DOC
I merge records 21 - 40 ... success, Exit Word, Reopen Merge DOC
I merge records 41 - 60 ... error, Serious prob... disable, No; Serious prob... disable, No; Word auto saved changes to NORMAL.DOT, Load it? No; Exit Word, Save Changes to DOC, NO; Reopen Merge DOC
I merge records 41 - 50 ... error, Serious prob... disable, No; Serious prob... disable, No; Word auto saved changes to NORMAL.DOT, Load it? No; Exit Word, Save Changes to DOC, NO; Reopen Merge DOC
I merge records 41 - 45 ... success, Exit Word, Reopen Merge DOC
I merge records 46 - 50 ... success (guess it's not something in the merge data)
- Realize that between each merge operation, I exit word and reload the document because I've never gotten a second attempt to go otherwise)
- I watch memory (always at least 50% of system available, stable use by WINWORD.EXE and Acrodist.exe during the operation), processor (busy, never pegged, combine WORD and Acrodist never more than aprox 55% of utilization), over 50G of disk available
I merge records 51 - 80 ... error, Serious prob... disable, No; Serious prob... disable, No; Word auto saved changes to NORMAL.DOT, Load it? No; Exit Word, Save Changes to DOC, NO; Reopen Merge DOC
I merge records 51 - 60 ... success, Exit Word, Reopen Merge DOC
I merge records 61 - 80 ... error, Serious prob... disable, No; Serious prob... disable, No; Word auto saved changes to NORMAL.DOT, Load it? No; Exit Word, Save Changes to DOC, NO; Reopen Merge DOC
I merge records 61 - 70 ... error, Serious prob... disable, No; Serious prob... disable, No; Word auto saved changes to NORMAL.DOT, Load it? No; Exit Word, Save Changes to DOC, NO; Reopen Merge DOC
I merge records 61 - 65 ... success, Exit Word, Reopen Merge DOC
I merge records 66 - 80 ... success, Exit Word, Reopen Merge DOC
I merge records 81 - 100 ... error, Serious prob... disable, No; Serious prob... disable, No; Word auto saved changes to NORMAL.DOT, Load it? No; Exit Word, Save Changes to DOC, NO; Reopen Merge DOC
I merge records 81 - 100 ... success (no exit / reopen)
I merge records 101 - 106 ... error, Serious prob... disable, No; Serious prob... disable, No; Word auto saved changes to NORMAL.DOT, Load it? No; Exit Word, Save Changes to DOC, NO; Reopen Merge DOC
I merge records 101 - 106 ... error, Serious prob... disable, No; Serious prob... disable, No; Word auto saved changes to NORMAL.DOT, Load it? No; Exit Word, Save Changes to DOC, NO; Reopen Merge DOC
I merge records 101 - 106 ... success, Exit Word, Reopen Merge DOC (think about drinking and using labels in the future)
delete all pages from merge doc except for mailing page, Save As test, Exit Work, Reopen TEST.DOC, retry stipped down document
I merge records ALL ... success, Exit Word
So is document size?

Mail merge speed/reliability issues

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