KB128: About Mail Merge for Form Letters and Mass Mailings

Mail merge has a new look in Microsoft Word 2002.

With Office 2002(XP), Microsoft has changed and simplified the Mail Merge process.

Use the Mail Merge Wizard to create form letters, mailing labels, envelopes, directories, and mass e-mail and fax distributions.

    Related documents: Leading Zero Dropped in Word/Excel Mail Merge; Set a Cell Format as Text in Excel

A basic overview of the  mail merge process is outlined below:

  1. Open or create a Main Document.

    •  An example of a Main Document might be a one-page form letter that you want to send to the 50 people in your Data Source.
       

  2. Open or create a Data Source with individual recipient information.

    • A Data Source is a file that contains the information to be merged with the Main Document, such as names and addresses. The Data Source file can be a Word table, an Excel spreadsheet, an Access table, or a text-delimited file.

    • Important: You must connect to a Data Source before you can use it in a Mail Merge.
       

  3. Add or customize merge fields in the Main Document.

    • Merge fields are placeholders inserted into the Main Document that Word will uses as a road map of where to place the correlating data from the Data Source. For example the merge field <<FirstName>>  would insert the name "Mary" from a record in the Data Source

  4. Merge data from the Data Source into the Main Document to create a new, merged document

    • Main Document + Data Source = Merged Document.
      The merged document is the output that will be printed, e.g. the 50 form letters, the sheets of labels, etc...

The wizard guides you through all of these steps.

 

The Mail Merge Process Step by Step for Form Letters

1. The Main Document:

Open Word 2002 and create a new document or open an existing document to use as the Main Document of the mail merge.
2. Click Tools > Letters and Mailings > Mail Merge Wizard
 
3. The Mail Merge Wizard:

There are 6 steps to the Mail Merge Wizard. The Wizard shows the current step at the bottom of the Wizard Window. There are navigation links to move back and forth within the 6 steps.

At Step 1, select the type of document to produce. Click the "Next" link to proceed to Step 2.

Mail Merge Wizard window
 
4. At Step 2, make selection of Main Document and click the "Next" link to proceed to Step3.
 
5. At Step 3, connect to or create a Data Source.

A Data Source is a file — for example, a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet or Micorosft Access database — that contains the data that varies in each copy of a merged document.

You can think of a Data Source as a table. Each column in the Data Source corresponds to a category of information, or data field — for example, first name, last name, street address, and postal code.

The name of each data field is listed in the first row of cells, which is called the header record. Each subsequent row contains one data record, which is a complete set of related information — for example, the name and address of a single recipient.

When you complete the merge, individual recipient information is mapped to the fields you included in your Main Document.

Click the "Next" link to proceed to Step 4.

 
 
6.

At Step 4, you will select options for your Data Source and place merge  fields in the Main Document.

Once you connect to your Data Source, the recipient information appears in the Mail Merge Recipients dialog box, where you can select exactly which recipients to include in the merge.

For example, if you want to target people in specific postal code areas, you can select only those people. You can also use this dialog box to perform more advanced filtering and sorting operations by clicking on the drop-down arrow next to the specific column of data to use in the filter or sort.

Click OK on the Mail Merge Recipients dialog box begin placing merge fields.


 The Mail Merge Wizard in Word 2002 offers several sets of pre-configured merge fields such as "Address block" and "Greeting line".

You may also choose to place Merge Fields more selectively (see below).



Mail Merge Recipients dialog box
7. Place Merge Fields:
  • View > Toolbars > Mail Merge
  • Click a location in the Main Document
  • Click the Insert Merge Field button to display the merge field list from the Data Source.
  • Click to select a field from the list
  • Click the Insert button to place the field in the location in the Main Document.
  • Repeat as necessary

Click the "Next" link to proceed to Step 5
 
8. At Step 5, you can preview the merged letters.

You may also make changes to the Main Document text and/or the recipient list at the this step.

Click the "Next" link  to complete the merge.
 
9. At Step 6, select either the Print option to print the form letters or the Edit individual letters to make changes.
 
 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

Author/Source: Ellen Ricca
Date Reviewed: 4/22/2003