Mailmerge and Stapling

[steve...@gmail.com]

This topic has been addressed many times I'm sure, but I'm wondering if
there is a better solution. Right now, I have a mailmerge document
that pulls data from a spreadsheet. I want these pages to be stapled
together so I don't have to do the stapling. I found a macro that
sends each section to the printer as it's own print job, but this is
not working like I would like. It's making my computer useless during
the print and takes a very long to print.

Anyone have any way to staple sections together in a mailmerge
document? I'm guess there's problem no other way to do this without
sending as seperate jobs, but I would LOVE for there to be some way of
doing this.

Thanks in advance for the help!

Stephen Mizell

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

The only way your printer knows when to staple is at the end of each print
job. So, the only way to do it is to send each letter to the printer as a
separate print job as the macro that you refer to does. It should not
however be tying up your computer.

--
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

<steve...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1149540110....@h76g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...

[Peter Jamieson]

I don't know which particular macro you used - perhaps the one in the
following article which someone else used successfully a couple of years
ago - if not, perhaps it would be worth giving this one a try - but
a. I agree with Doug
b. there are a couple of other ideas in here, but personally I'd stick with
the thing that /does/ work rather than pursuing things which probably won't

This question pops up from time to time and unfortunately
a. I don't have access to this type of printer so can't test
b. no-one has ever told me whether any of the approaches I've suggested
actually work.

The main suggestions are:
a. have a good look at the printer driver options, and see if there is any
way you can trigger the stapling action by, e.g. specifying that page or
perhaps the last page comes from a different bin. I doubt it, but worth
looking.
b. if you have a detailed technical manual for the printer that tells you
what sequence to send to trigger the stapling action, you may be able to put
that sequence into a { PRINT } field at the beginning or end of your
document. Again, PRINT only works in certain circumstances so it's a long
shot. You might also be able to work out what control sequence or postscript
code is used to trigger stapling by checking the "print to file" option in
File|Print and comparing the output of "stapled" and "non-stapled" documents
in e.g. Notepad. Also a long shot. You may find with Word XP you can issue
the corrct sequence in some way using Word Mailmerge events.
c. Instead of doing one merge for all the records in your data source, use
VBA to do one merge for each record in your data source. You should then see
one print job per packet rather than a 1500 page print job. Some starting
point code is as follows - you may find see the Print dialog for each merge,
depending on the version of Word. If your merge processes multiple source
data records per packet you will obviously need to modify the source code.

If /any/ of these approaches works it would be useful if you could tell us
what worked, and in the case of (a) or (b), which version of Windows and
Word you are using and what the printer is.

Sub OneMergePerSourceRec()
'

' NB, needs bettor error management and doubtless other things a VBA expert
' will point out.

Dim intSourceRecord
Dim objMerge As Word.MailMerge
Dim strOutputDocumentName As String
Dim TerminateMerge As Boolean

' Need to set up this object as the ActiveDocument changes when the
' merge is performed. Besides, it's clearer.

Set objMerge = ActiveDocument.MailMerge
With objMerge

' If no data source has been defined, do it here using OpenDataSource.
' But if it is already defined in the document, you should not need to
define it here.

' .OpenDataSource _
' Name:="whatever"

intSourceRecord = 1
TerminateMerge = False

Do Until TerminateMerge
.DataSource.ActiveRecord = intSourceRecord

' if we have gone past the end (and possibly, if there are no records)
' then the Activerecord will not be what we have just tried to set it to

If .DataSource.ActiveRecord <> intSourceRecord Then
TerminateMerge = True
' the record exists
Else

.DataSource.FirstRecord = intSourceRecord
.DataSource.LastRecord = intSourceRecord
.Destination = wdSendToPrinter
.Execute
intSourceRecord = intSourceRecord + 1
End If
Loop
End With
End Sub

--
Peter Jamieson

<steve...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1149540110....@h76g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

Hi Peter,

The macro that I usually provide for this is:

Dim i As Long
With ActiveDocument
For i = 1 To .Sections.Count
.PrintOut Background:=True, Range:=wdPrintFromTo, From:="s" & i,
To:="s" & i
Next i
End With

When this is run against the document produced by executing the merge to a
new document, it should not tie up the computer.

--
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

"Peter Jamieson" <p...@KillmapSpjjnet.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:ODv68jTi...@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...

[steve...@gmail.com]

Yeah, it's strange. It sends 3 print jobs at a time to the printer.
I'll go watch the status of the jobs on the printer and at most there
will be 3 in the queue, once those are gone, more are sent.

Thanks for all the help, I'm going to try some of the things listed and
will get back.

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

That sounds like something to do with the print spooler.

--
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

<steve...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1149598663.6...@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...

[steve...@gmail.com]

Ah, I have a couple options I was looking at (I'm not very good with
printers, so pardon my stupidity). On my printer settings, the option
that says "Enable print spooling" is unchecked. I'm thinking I should
check that.

Next, on the advanced tab it gives me options to "Spool documents so
pages print faster." It has two options underneath that:

1) Start printing after last page is spooled.
2) Start printing immediately.

I'm not sure which one would help out more with this setup, I'm
guessing immediately.

Thanks again for all of the help!

[Peter Jamieson]

The effect of the settings for print spooling, background printing in Word,
and so on can vary significantly depending on general machine performance,
disk space available, and so on. Generally speaking I would expect switching
on spooling to improve performance, but in some circumstances it may not.
Generally the only approach is to experiment and see, and of course when it
comes to real printing, that can involve quite a lot of wasted paper and
other consumables.

There's a bit of info. about this in

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/870622

Peter Jamieson

<steve...@gmail.com> wrote in message
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