Mail Merge in Publisher V2

[riball]

I am having issues with Data Merge for a mail merge document in Publisher V2.  When trying to update the records, Publisher V2 hangs for a long period ( 3 to 4 minutes) and the updated records are blank when previewing the records after the update.

The document was originally designed in Publisher 1, but as I have now opened it in V2 I can no longer open it in V1.

[Old Bruce]

Are you trying to 'update the records' in the original file or the Generated file? You need to use the original. Are you using .xlsx or .csv files and those are the files which are being being updated?

[riball]

Hello,

I have updated the records in an Excel .xlsx file and the problem occurs when I use the update function in the Data Merge Manager in Publisher V2.

Publisher hangs for a while and then when it is available again the records have not updated and the record view in the Data Merge Manager is blank for the updated records.  The remainder of the records are unchanged and appear as before.

I have also noticed that when I save or open the document that the merge list is attached to, Publisher shows 'not responding' for a while.  It does respond eventually.

I have tried unlinking the data file and relinking it again, but that has not solved the problem.

Richard 

[riball]

Hi,

I think the issue is with the .xlsx file.  I have applied a format to the sheet which then makes it very large and cumbersome to manipulate.  I think that when I have reduced the area formatted, or removed the format altogether then issue may be resolved.  I will let you know.

Richard

[riball]

Hi,

Yes, all working as expected now.  The issue seems to be the fact that the whole sheet was formatted with alternating green rows.  As this covered the whole sheet, Publisher saw the sheet as having a huge number of records and the memory on my PC could not cope with the update procedure in Publisher.

In the end I copied the data (not the formatting) into a new sheet in the excel file and linked that sheet to Publisher and everything then worked OK.

Sorry to have troubled you with this issue, but it may come in useful if someone else has the same problem.

Thanks

Richard

[Old Bruce]

8 minutes ago, riball said:

In the end I copied the data (not the formatting) into a new sheet in the excel file and linked that sheet to Publisher and everything then worked OK.

Sorry to have troubled you with this issue, but it may come in useful if someone else has the same problem.

Thanks

Thank you for providing the forum with the solution. One other tip is to pay attention to the use of formulas in spreadsheets, we can forget that they are there as we only see the results.