Imagine for a moment that you are a teacher and you need to send each student's parents
a letter about what the students need to bring with them the first day of school, and what
classroom to go to.
You want it to be personalized, but don't have the time to change the letter for each
person.
The Mail Merge tool will help you with this job.
On the Ribbon, left- click Mailings to select it.
Click the Start Mail Merge command.
You'll see a list where you can choose the type of document you'll be working with, or
you can select the Step by Step Mail Merge wizard.
Until you are really familiar with Mail Merge, I recommend using the wizard.
I'm pretty proficient with Word and I still use the wizard myself.
So, we'll just select it, and the Mail Merge task pane opens on the right.
This pane will take us step-by-step through the process.
The first step is to choose what type of document we're going to create.
You can see here the other types of documents we can use mail merge for.
Mail merge is used a lot to create envelopes and labels.
We've already decided we're creating letters and that's chosen by default, so we'll leave
it as it is.
Click Next to move to the next step.
In Step 2 of the Mail Merge process, we need to decide whether to use the current document
as our letter, a template, or an existing document.
We are going to use the current document.
If you decide to use a template or an existing document, Word will guide you through the
process.
Let's move on to the next step.
Now, we have to decide who the recipients are and whether we are going to use an existing
list, pull from our Outlook contacts, or create a new list.
Existing list is chosen by default.
If you want to use an existing spreadsheet or database with information, you can click
Browse, and then locate that file on your computer.
If not, you may want to create it in Word.
To do this, just select Type a new list, and then click Create.
We're given a form with multiple fields.
We're going to complete one of these forms for each student.
But we need to look at our fields.
So let's choose Customize.
I can see immediately that I have some fields that I don't need for this letter, so I can
delete them if I want.
All I need to do is select the field and then choose Delete.
I can continue doing this until I've deleted all the fields that I don't need.
Now, I also need to add a few fields.
In the letter I'm writing to the parents, I want to refer to their child by name, so
I'll click Add, and in the dialog box type Student, and then click OK.
I need to mention the classroom number they need to go to, so I'll add that as a field.
We now have a field for each piece of information that we're going to need to create our letter.
Click OK and now begin filling in the form.
Under Title I'm going to put Mr., and for the First and Last Name, I'm going to enter
a parent's first and last name.
Now, you're going to create a form for each individual student.
This may take a little bit of time, but in the long run, it's going to save us time.
You can move from one field to the next by clicking the Tab key.
You can also point and click if you need to make corrections.
When you've completed one entry, click on New Entry, and now you get another blank form.
Continue completing these forms until you've created one for everyone on your list.
Once you've entered all of your information, click OK.
Now you're asked to save your data list.
Give it a name and a location, just like you'd save any other file.
At this point, I think we're ready to move on, so click OK.
Now you can see that we have the option to Edit our recipient list.
But, I don't need to do that, so we're ready to move onto the Next Step, writing our letter.
Just click the Next link.
Remember that we're going to create a form letter and let Mail Merge fill in all of our
students' names, so we're going to need to put in a placeholder each time we need to
insert something from our Data List.
I just need to place my insertion point where I want the information to appear.
Mail Merge gives you tools to use to pull information from your data source.
For example, in our letter we're going to need to create an Address Block here.
Now, I can select Address block and open a new dialog box to format the Address Block.
I can choose how I want the name and address to appear, and then view it in the Preview
window.
When I'm happy with the way it looks, I can just click OK, and the Address block placeholder
will appear in the document.
Let's move on down to where I want the greeting to appear, now I'm going to click the Greeting
line link in the task pane.
A dialog box appears, and I can use the drop down menus to select how I want it to appear.
I want it to say Dear Mr. Smith or Dear Mr.
and Mrs. Smith, so I'll just select the option I need
from the menu; and when I'm done, I can click OK and a placeholder appears in the document.
Now, in the body of the letter I want to refer to the student by name.
So, let's just move to the point in the letter where that is, and place the insertion point
there.
Right here.
Okay.
In the task pane, click More items.
From the dialog box, choose Student, and click Insert.
Now we can see a placeholder appears in our document where the student's name will appear.
I want to do the exact same thing, but this time with the room number the student has
to report to on the first day of class.
So, I'll place my insertion point at the correct place in the document.
That would be here.
And then click More Items.
I'll choose Classroom, and then click Insert.
In the task pane, click on Next.
In this step, we're going to Preview our letters.
Notice that Mail Merge has now inserted all of our students' names, the classroom number,
and a parent's name.
Let's take a look at the letters by using the Previous and Next buttons.
Once you're satisfied that your letters have merged correctly with the data source, you
can move on to the next step, which is to complete the Mail Merge.
In Step 6 of the Mail Merge, we have a choice of printing our letters or editing individual
letters.
You can use this option if you need to add additional information to only select letters.
By choosing Print, your merged documents are sent to the printer.
You can choose to print either the current one, or all of them, or a specific range.
Now we've completed a mail merge using the wizard, but if you want to do this without
a wizard, you'll find everything you need right here on the Mailing tab.
As I click on these commands, you'll see that everything works the same as it did in the
wizard.
You can choose your list, edit your recipients, insert an address block, as well as insert
a greeting line.
You can also insert fields the same way that we did with student name and room number.
If you use the wizard and then realize that you want to change something, you can always
use these commands to modify your letter and complete your mail merge.
It may seem difficult at first, but the Mail Merge wizard takes you step by step through
the process.
Give it a try.
Create a letter or labels yourself.
Those invitations and holiday cards will be a lot easier to address this way!