Mail Merge

Mail Merge Wizard

1) To start a mail merge, open Microsoft Word 2007, and click on the Mailings tab.

2) Find the Start Mail Merge button under the Mailings tab and click the arrow beside it. Choose the last option, Step by Step Mail Merge Wizard.

3) This brings up the task pane as shown below. Select Letters (or whatever type you suits the job your working on) as the type of document and then click on the Next: Starting document link at the bottom of the task pane to go to the next step to select your starting document.

4) At this point you have options to use the current document you have open, to select a template, or to browse to an existing document not open. For this example we will start from a template. Select Start from a template. This brings up a link you click on to Select template.

5) This will open the Select Template dialog box. Select the Letters tab and choose Oriel Merge Letter. Click Ok. This will take you to the next step in the Mail Merge process which you will select recipients.

6) Select Use an existing list and click on the Browse link. Locate and open the file containing your data source. Your data source can be anything from a database holding thousands of records to a simple spreadsheet that contain 10 names. For this exercise I will use a existing test spreadsheet.

7) This will open a dialog box in which you can select the table (the named range defined within Excel) containing the mail merge recipients info you want to pull into the merge fields in your document. Select whatever you named the range in your spreadsheet containing the names and addresses you want to use for the mail merge ("attendees" is the defined range selected as shown below so I will use this in my example).

8) Important: Be sure to check the box indicating that the First row of data contains column headers so that the field labels (Last Name, First Name, Address1, etc.) on your spreadsheet won¿t be mistaken for data. This opens the Mail Merge Recipients dialog box shown below. Here you can select which recipients to include or deselect by unchecking the check box by the name.

9) You can sort and filter the list using the drop-down list located on each field name indicated by the triangular black arrow. Note there are also links to Sort and Filter or Find Duplicates and recipients in the Refine recipient list section. Click on the link Next: Write your letter to move onto the next step to edit the mail merge template letter content.

10) Notice that the Address Block and Greeting Line fields are already inserted into this template letter. If you weren¿t using a pre-formatted mail merge letter, you would just simply click on the links on the right to insert the Address block, Greeting line, or more items (more merge fields). You also have these same options on the Mailings toolbar at the top¿you don¿t have to use the wizard each time you do a mail merge. Pick the date and replace the letter content with your own and then go on to the next step to preview your letters by clicking on the link at the bottom of the task pane.

11) When you click on the Address block link, the following dialog box appears in which you can choose the format of the address. Also, you can click on the Match Fields button to match the missing address field (the Match Fields button is also on the Mailings tab in the Write and Insert Fields grouping).

12) When you click on the Match Fields button Word brings up the following dialog box. Use the Address 1 drop-down list to select the Street field name from the Excel spreadsheet.

13) Please note that you have buttons on both the Preview Results group on the Mailings ribbon as well as the task pane to look at different recipient info before going on to the next step to complete the merge. This will help you verify that all of your information has been entered correctly.

14) You can then click on the link, Next: Complete the merge, which the following message will appear:

15) Next, click on the link Edit individual letters which you can see from the screen tip is the link to Merge to new document. This is also a button on the Finish & Merge on the drop-down list on the Mailings Ribbon.

16) The Print link on the Task Pane or Print Documents on the Ribbon drop-down list allows you to merge directly to the printer. When you click on the link to edit the letters, the following dialog box appears:

17) You can choose whether to merge all or selected records. Click OK and then a new merged document entitled Letters1 is created. It contains the individual letters for each recipient. If you look at the status bar, you will see that it indicates multiple letters. At this point you have completed a mail merge in Word 2007. When finished you can always save this document you created for future reference