Paul, you've given a very complete overview of a difficult problem - 50,000 typos? The mind boggles.

Since you're using 250 or fewer items in your 'sack', have you considered simply copying the necessary fields to a temp table (style FoxBase) and then calling a straight Word mailmerge? Much faster than ODBC, because it reads DBFs directly. I have a client using exported tables this way very successfully. They actually open Word and start the merge themselves, but both merge doc and dbf name are pre-set. This could certainly be done with OLE Automation, and if you don't open Word you can't lean on the keyboard < grin >

Barbara

>I just checked out the mail merge classes you mentioned and have a few comments.
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>My background: We have a direct mail shop that has used Foxpro tables for years. Our first app was written in FoxBase+ using WordPerfect for DOS as the mail merge processor (don't ask how we did it, it wasn't easy), the app was converted to Fox 2.6 for DOS. That system was used for 4 years. I then scrapped the WordPerfect method and switched to Word (Delphi app using a fox table connecting to Word for Office 95). In know, Delphi... skip it. Delphi, Fox whatever the method doesn't change. We merge jobs in sizes ranging from 50-50000 pieces.
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>Here's what we found:
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>You cannot simply use Word to mail merge. You have to connect to the Fox table through ODBC which is incredibly slow! The fastest data source is a word table but you can't easily get a Fox table into a Word table. You also need to consider that if you're printing several thousand pieces then you cannot do them all at once as one print job. It would be extremely difficult to manage the output. Also, if you're using Word only and someone leans on the keyboard before you print, you could print the entire job with a typo in the letter.
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>We print our pieces in smaller portions called sacks. In third class mail you actually need to put bundles of mail in a sack. Hence the name. Our sacks are no larger than 250 pieces. A very manageable size.
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>I'm assuming that you're going to run this table through a third-classing software package. The savings are incredible! Talk to your local post-office for all your options.
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>Anyway, to print. What we do is create the letter in Word. Create a word table in a separate document with all the columns you'll need and one blank row. Attach that table as the data source for your letter. In Delphi (or Fox, our new app is under development in VFP5) we launch word, open the doc, open our table, go to the sack we want, fill in the row in the word table from our Fox data, print the piece, skip 1 in Fox, fill in the row in the word table from our Fox data, print the piece... You get the picture.
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>Remember, you only need to beat the speed of the printer. In our case it's 30 pages per minute. Difficult to do with ODBC but easy to do with a Word table.
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>This method also allows you to escape in the middle of a sack if you need to.
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>Feel free to give me a call if you'd like to talk about any of this stuff. I've spent more time then I'd like working out this crap and wouldn't like anyone else to have to sweat these details. (513) 523-6700
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>paul