Re: Lengthy merge code

Do any of your data fields contain any of the delimiter characters (i.e. the
text delimiter - double quote ", the field delimiter, usually a comma but
could be a tab or something else, or the record delimiter, usually CRLF) ?
Also, is all your data ASCII/ANSI or does it contain "international
characters" such as accented characters?

If the data is sufficiently simple, it might make sense to write some simple
VBA to preprocess it.

Peter Jamieson

"Heather" <heather.c@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1169680987.037132.112770@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
There must be, but I don't have the programming skills to work
something else out. Perl would be difficult because of the multiple
positions for the data, I think. If I had Excel 2007, I could probably
use data sorts and some fancy macros, but I don't have the software.

On Jan 24, 3:59 pm, "Peter Jamieson" <p...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Do you think bumping the virtual memory might help? We're running the
merges on a dedicated machine that's faster and better than our other
desktop jobbies. All it does is the merges. It lives for merging.
;)Shouldn't think so, but in this kind of situation I would try
anything I was
convinced I could back out of. However, since you've dedicated a system
to
it
a. it's probably going to be worth taking a fairly systematic approach
to
performance monitoring, using the Windows performance monitoring
facilities,
Task manager, and so on to try to discover what is going on.
b. if there's plenty of free (real) memory even before Word starts its
merge, the chances are that the problem has nothing to do with memory.
c. if not, I'd probably try to remove/disable anything I didn't need.
Not
always easy to discover, of course.

Yes - the merge code seems rather insane. We've converted to a
proprietary software package - I don't dare name it - and the merge
seems to be the best way to handle the types of communications we send
out.From what you said earlier it sounds as if you're now committed to
this
approach, but are there other options? In particular, is there any way to
do
more of the decision-making work when exporting from your package (if
that's
hwat you're doing) and less using field coding?

Peter Jamieson"Heather" <heathe...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in
messagenews:1169672285.780756.99660@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Yes - the merge code seems rather insane. We've converted to a
proprietary software package - I don't dare name it - and the merge
seems to be the best way to handle the types of communications we send
out. I haven't come across much information on merge code of this
magnitude.

Do you think bumping the virtual memory might help? We're running the
merges on a dedicated machine that's faster and better than our other
desktop jobbies. All it does is the merges. It lives for merging. ;)

Heather

On Jan 24, 12:16 pm, "Peter Jamieson" <p...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
the programming for this particular letter is about 90 pages of
merge
code,Rather you than me :-) I've come across some complex merge
documents over
the years but I think yours beats the lot !

Reports suggest that there are "boundaries" at which things start to
slow
significantly, but I've never really had a good go at pinning down any
specific causes. One possibility in many cases is that even with quite
large
amounts of RAM in a system, software (i.e. code/programs) can still
take
so
much of it that an application may run into a RAM limitation quite
quickly
when it is loading or generating data, at which point Windows will
spend
more time playing with its virtual memory. You /might/ be able to
check
that
by removing as many programs and inessential services from your system
and
having a look at real/virtual memory usage. The trouble is that
performance
testing of this kind can be very time-consuming, and if the real
scenario
involved real printing, your tests aren't necessarily realistic unless
you're actually using up paper or using something like the full
Acrobat
or
Microsoft Office Document Imaging as your output printer.

Peter Jamieson

"Heather" <heathe...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in
messagenews:1169664132.110199.76040@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I'm with you - it ain't broke (yet) and I'd rather not have to fix
it.
:)

I'm not sure if the SKIPIF would be a good solution unless I create
multiple templates for different kinds of students and run the
merges
using the same data. I have to run my merges in groups of 500 or
less,
because of our internal document imaging software limitations, but
our
daily files are about 50-100 records, with a few huge files in the
summer (3000+).

With regards to Word getting progressively slower - is there an
upper
limit, do you think? 30+ records? I have a LOT of includetext
fields -
the programming for this particular letter is about 90 pages of
merge
code, broken down into five documents.

Heather

On Jan 24, 10:52 am, "Peter Jamieson"
<p...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
The only type of code that does anything like that is a { SKIPIF }
code
and
as far as I can tell that's not appropriate for your situation -
i.e.
it's
there to stop processing of the current record altogether when the
condition
specified in the SKIP is found.

Not much helps when you're dealing with large numbers - you can't
convert
your data to Access, for example, because it has a 255-column
maximum,
and
that's why you probably wouldn't be able to use SQL even if you
wanted
to.

The merge takes a long time, and I assume it's because word is
ticking
through each line of code and saying to itself 'yes/no.'It could
well
be that. It could also be because Word takes quite a long time
even to read a long text record and split it up into separate
fields.
(It
shouldn't but as far as I can tell, it does). Doing lots of
INCLUDETEXTS
is
likely to have a significant impact as well. There are some unuaul
text/formatting features that can slow processing down (e.g.
"formatted
bullets"), but I think you would be able to tell if you have any of
those
by
taking out most of your fields and seeing if the merge is still
slow.
You
may also find that Word gets progressively slower as it works its
way
through your data file, and if that is the case, it /might/ make
sense
to
do
the merge in multiple chunks.

However, in my view, this is a classic case of "if it ain't broke,
don't
'fix' it": if I had the option, I'd probably just want to check
that
increased memory or processor speed made a difference, but that's
about
it.

Peter Jamieson

"Heather" <heathe...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in
messagenews:1169659711.224146.230590@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Hi, all - I have a question that's probably painfully easy and
obvious,
but I'm stumped.

I'm working with a very large (1400+ columns) csv file to create
customized letters for our students. I used merge code to
determine
scholarships and special program offers based on things like
admission
averages. Unfortunately, an admission average can appear in one
of
ten
positions, and within the one in ten, in one of six positions.
So,
naturally, my merge code is long. I don't know sql and there
isn't
time
to write new programming, so I'm stuck with my pages and pages of
merge
code.

To try to improve performance, I have code stored in different
files...so with the main letter, if the individual record meets
certain
criteria, there's an includetext function for a document. That
document, in turn, has includetext functions from a master
document
that inserts appropriate paragraphs. It works - it's not pretty,
but
it
works.

The merge takes a long time, and I assume it's because word is
ticking
through each line of code and saying to itself 'yes/no.'

My question is: is there something I can insert into my code to
say
that if the condition is found (positive result), to stop
searching
though the rest of the code in that linked document and move on?

Thank you again for your help. This group has been an invaluable
resource.

Heather



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