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Tools - Mail Merging

A common requirement for may individuals and a business is the need to produce many letters to individual addressees without having to produce each one individually. To produce mailing out of tens or hundreds of letters individually would be a time consuming activity. Fortunately the solution is quite simple in Word.

 

Three basic steps are taken

 

  1. Create a main letter. Note: You can also create a Mailing Labels or Envelops document to merge into labels or envelopes

 

  1. Create or use an existing table or database in which the address details are kept.

 

  1. Merge the first record in the table or database into the main letter, print or store the result and repeat the process automatically for the remaining address records.

 

Below we will look at this in more detail

 

 

1.. Creating a Main letter or Document

Use File, New to create a main letter. This letter will not have any individual addressee details in it. At the point where these are to occur you just leave space for them:

 

Bloggs & Co

36 The Place

Any area

Some Town

Some PostCode

Tel:

<blank line for Title, 1stName,Lastname>

<blank line for Street Address>

<blank line for Area/Town>

<blank line for City/County>

<blank line for Post Code>

 

Dear <space for Title, Lastname>

 

 

Our records show that you owe the company and that this was due on . Could you please expedite payment as soon as possible.

 

Yours faithfully,

 

The Boss

 

 

Save the file as ???????.doc (e.g: Dueletter.doc), but do not close it.

Tools, Mail Merge

With the main letter created, click Tools, Mail Merge.

Click the Create button.

Click Form Letters

Another box will appear. Click on the Active Window button

The Name of your main document will appear under the Create button.

2. Creating or Opening a table or Database

Next click the Get Data button

In the drop down list you may select either:

 

Creating a Data Source:

When you click this a wizard or helper called Create Data Source will appear so that you can follow instructions to help you create a new data source and add records to it.

Alternatively you can leave the Mail Merge Helper for a moment and create a new data source by opening a new document and placing a table in to it(see ‘Temporarily leaving Mail Merge to create a new data source’ below).

Open a Data Source:

Use this to open a previously created data source.

 

Temporarily leaving Mail Merge to create a new data source

If you don’t have a data source and you don’t want to use the helper Create Data Source, then cancel the Mail Merge Helper box for a moment. (it will still keep details about your Main document).

Use File, New to get a blank document.

Inserting a Table

In the blank document click the Insert Table tool.

Drag down and across the grid, to get the required number of columns and rows.

Don’t worry too much about the number of rows but try to get the number of columns roughly correct.

You can add new rows and columns at any stage.

Use the top row of the table to put in the column headings:

Title 1stName Surname Street Area/Town City/County PostCode AmountDue DueDate

To add a row: click cursor at extreme right of row, after border and press Enter key on keyboard.

To add a column: Move cursor just above an existing column so cursor turns to black down arrow, click mouse, then click Tables, Insert Column. A column will be added to left of existing column.

Enter a record in each row until you have enter all addressee details.

Save the file as ???????.doc (eg: ClientDbase.doc).

If you already have one, you can use an existing Word table or database from Microsoft Access or any other database file containing the information. In this case instead of asking to create a new file during the Mail Merge process, you can select to open an existing file.

The next step is to return to step 1 and to place merge fields (same as headings in Table), into the correct places in the main letter.

In Step 1. you click the Edit button to edit the main document so that you can insert the fields. When you use this edit facility you will see a toolbar upon which is the Insert Merge Field tool. This gives a list of your headings. Select one to be inserted at your current cursor position.

Continue this process until you have placed the fields in the required places of the main document.

Note: leave the relevant spaces between field codes where there will be spaces when the fields are filled with real data. Again place fields on separate lines when the real data will have to appear on separate lines.

 

3. Merging

The Last step is to carry out the Merge. You can merge all the letters to a Form Letter document for printing later, or merge the letters straight to the printer.

You have the option to merge all records or a given number of records

Mail Merge Note

You can also create a Mailing Labels or Envelops document to merge into labels or envelopes. This can be done within or outside of Mail Merging.

 

Envelopes and Labels

Envelopes and Labels can be created and printed on separately or as previously mentioned during a Mail Merge. Here we look at them separately.

Notice the two tabs Envelopes and Labels

In Labels the Address box can be filled automatically by selecting text prior to starting Tools, Envelopes and Labels. You can edit the address if you require.

Print options can be set to print a whole page of the same label, or print to a specific column and row on the page of labels in the printer.

Label dimensions can be pre-set or adjusted using the options button

In Options you can select different printing details and choose standard label sizes.

Using the Details button allows customisations.

The pages of labels you purchased from your stationary supplier may not fall in to a set standard size, so here you can adjust pitches, height and margins.

You can also detail how many labels across the label and the number of Rows or labels on the page

After customising you may get a message stating that the details you have set will not fit into the label page. In this case re-adjust either pitches, margins, height, width, or the number of Rows down.

Clicking OK in this box returns you to the previous box.

You may have to experiment with the Labels function, but with a little patience once the settings are correct you can repeatedly use this function until you change the label type from your supplier.