WP for cmd-line data merging & printing?
 

I have an old character mode database app that I want to print nicely formatted docs from.
I imagine the easiest way to do this is to find a WP that can merge data from the db with a nice template doc. I'd like to print docs via the WP from the command line: telling it to print document 'x' (the WP template)merging-in data either from a separate ASCII file, or from cmd line arguments, specifying which printer to use, how many copies to print etc.
The WP must print docs quickly on demand. Perhaps it could run continuously in the background just waiting for commands. Alternatively it might fire up a new session quickly, perhaps in some specially fast background mode, for each doc. What I can't do is to wait an age for a gargantuan suite to start up to print each doc.
If all this were possible (including the need for speed) with OpenOffice, that would be my preferred choice, but I suspect it would be too slow.
All recommendations gratefully considered.
Thanks, Mike.