While ODBC seem to be slow it has an option to link to source. In fact I think what is so slow is not ODBC nor VFP but word itself. And as Barbara pointed out word could directly use a DBF too. I wrote mailmerge class preserving OOP and in the name of OOP and ODBC support didn't do it with old indian trick (export to ie:Excel type file or delimited with tab, in word insert that file-faster than ODBC).
>Cetin

Yeah, I decided to chuck ODBC and create the data table on the fly through VFP. I saved the data as a Foxpro 2.6 table with a generic name that all my Word templates have set up as their datasource (VFPDATA.DBF) then I just kick off the Word merge and it seems to work ALOT faster.