WD2000: Printing Multiple Documents Opens Separate Instances of Word

ID: Q209810

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Word 2000

SYMPTOMS

When you select several documents (20 or more) from within Windows Explorer and then print the documents (in Windows Explorer, on the File menu, click Print), after you print about 20 documents, the following error message appears:

Too many DDE channels are open. Please close a window.

When you click OK to the error message, another instance of Word opens for each of the remaining documents you selected to print.

WORKAROUND

To work around this problem, use the following sample Visual Basic for Applications macro to print multiple documents.

The following macro prints all Word documents found in the specified directory:


Sub PrintDocs()

    Dim sDir As String
    Dim sDocToPrint As String
    
    sDir = "C:\My Documents\"                 ' Set document directory.
    sDocToPrint = Dir(sDir & "*.Doc")         ' Set document type, in
                                              ' this case, Word documents.

    WordBasic.DisableAutoMacros 1             ' Disable AutoMacros.
    Do While sDocToPrint <> ""
        Documents.Open sDir & sDocToPrint           ' Open the document
        ActiveDocument.PrintOut Background:=True    ' Print the document in
                                                    ' the background.
        ActiveDocument.Close                        ' Close the document.
        sDocToPrint = Dir                           ' Get next file in
                                                    ' sequence to print.
    Loop
    WordBasic.DisableAutoMacros 0             ' Enable AutoMacros.

End Sub

MORE INFORMATION

Microsoft provides programming examples for illustration only, without warranty either expressed or implied, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and/or fitness for a particular purpose. This article assumes that you are familiar with the programming language being demonstrated and the tools used to create and debug procedures. Microsoft support professionals can help explain the functionality of a particular procedure, but they will not modify these examples to provide added functionality or construct procedures to meet your specific needs. If you have limited programming experience, you may want to contact a Microsoft Certified Solution Provider or the Microsoft fee-based consulting line at (800) 936-5200. For more information about Microsoft Certified Solution Providers, please see the following page on the World Wide Web:

http://www.microsoft.com/mcsp/

For more information about the support options available from Microsoft, please see the following page on the World Wide Web:

http://www.microsoft.com/support/supportnet/refguide/

REFERENCES

For more information about using the sample code in this article, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q212536 OFF2000: How to Run Sample Code from Knowledge Base Articles

Additional query words:


Keywords          : kbdta wd2000 
Version           : WINDOWS:2000
Platform          : WINDOWS 
Issue type        : kbprb

Last Reviewed: June 15, 1999