Suppressing the Excel dialog for waiting for an OLE action

**maninweb** · 2011-05-01, 05:38 PM

Hi all...

I have written an application which uses the PDF Creator for creating PDF's.
The application is loading different Excel files, fills them with some data and then
puts the output in the PDF Creator's print queue. Then the app merges all single
PDF's to one PDF. Depending on the users' choice, there are sometimes many PDF's
to create, for example more than 150 files.

On some machines, merging the PDF's can take a long time and then Excel displays
a message "Excel is waiting for another application to complete an OLE action".

My question: is it possible to hide this message? (as the message is regularly displayed
until the PDF Creator has finished his job) I tried to use Application.DisplayAlerts, but
that did not work.

Thanks in advance for any help and suggestions

Regards :-)

**Ken Puls** · 2011-05-02, 10:25 PM

Hi Mourad,

I've seen that message before, and I'm not sure if we can actually suppress it or not. I'm not entirely sure that Excel is the owner of the message, (maybe the OS is?) although the wording would lead you to believe so.

I wonder if, to avoid situations like that, it might be better to combine the files more frequently? Say after every 10 documents merge them, then continue priting more? I don't think it would help the speed (in fact it would probably make it slower) but with less files to work with at a time maybe it would improve the stability?

**Jan Karel Pieterse** · 2011-05-03, 07:26 AM

It can be suppressed using a bit of Windows API, see:

http://www.excelforum.com/excel-prog...le-action.html

**maninweb** · 2011-05-03, 09:55 AM

Hi Ken...

many thanks for your suggestions. In fact, I also do not know if Excel really owns this message; I supposed it. That's a thing, I can try to find out. Thanks also for the idea to split the merging in more parts. I will give a try, however I must then merge that part PDF documents in one document (my customer needs this). Unfortunately the PDF Creator is in my opinion not well documented, perhaps you have a code for this?

If I let the PDF Creator not merge the documents and I only fill the print queue and then merge the docs manually by using the Print Monitor, then the OLE message does not appear. So I had also the idea to send an API message to the print monitor, I am working on it but not ready yet. If this will work, I think the PDF Creator will be independent from Excel and work in background and make the users' life a little bit easier.

Best regards :-)

**Jan Karel Pieterse** · 2011-05-03, 10:43 AM

The message can be suppressed using a windows API call.
I already posted a reply with a link to a page that shows the solution, but the post is pending approval from an admin.

**maninweb** · 2011-05-03, 11:55 AM

Hi Jan Karel...

great, thanks. So I will wait until the post is approved

Best regards :-)

**Ken Puls** · 2011-05-03, 05:04 PM

Originally Posted by Jan Karel Pieterse

I already posted a reply with a link to a page that shows the solution, but the post is pending approval from an admin.

Grrr.... I'll approve it right now. I need to look into this, as it's not supposed to moderate posts for users with more than 5 posts...

**Ken Puls** · 2011-05-03, 05:06 PM

Okay, approved.

Now... question... does suppressing the message leave the routine running until it completes? It's not indicating that the "program is not responding" or anything?

**maninweb** · 2011-05-03, 05:30 PM

Hi all...

many thanks, Jan Karel, a very smart solution. I will try it out and report here about my experience. However this can take some days before I am ready.

Best regards :-)