Using Mail Merge

Consider a scenario wherein you are required to send yearly appraisal

of each student to the respective guardians. These appraisal letters
would contain some text that will remain same for all recipients, while
the information about each student, such as the guardian name,
address, and grades, will change.

One way of doing the preceding task is to print the letters each time
going back to the document and changing the name, address, and
grades. This procedure requires a lot of time and effort. The mail
merge feature of Word provides a solution to this problem.

The mail merge feature involves taking information from one document,
known as the data source, and combining it with another document,
known as the main document.

The data source can be a Word file, an Excel file, an Access database,
or any file that contains the personalized or customized information,
which changes in the main document. The main document can contain
text that does not change. In addition, it contains placeholders for
various fields in the data source. A placeholder is replaced by actual
data values after the merge operation. For each record in a data
source, a separate copy of the document is created.
To create letters using the mail merge feature, you need to perform
the following steps:

1. Click the Mailings tab.

2. Click the Start Mail Merge button in the Start Mail Merge group.

The Start Mail Merge menu appears, as shown in the following figure.

3. Select the Step-by-Step Mail Merge Wizard option. The Mail Merge
task pane appears on the right of the document window, as shown in
the following figure.
The Mail Merge task pane takes you through the steps of the mail
merge wizard.

4. Ensure that the Letters option is selected in the Select document

type section of the Mail Merge task pane. The following list describes
the options available in the Select document type section:

 Letters: This option enables you to create and send letters to a

group of users by using the mail merge utility of Word.
 E-mail messages: This option enables you to send e-mail
messages to a group of users.
 Envelopes: This option enables you to print several envelopes with
the same address.
 Labels: This option enables you to print several labels with the
same address.
 Directory: This option enables you to create an address list
containing addresses of a group of users.
5. Click the Next: Starting document link in the Step 1 of 6 section. The next
page of the mail merge wizard is displayed, as shown in the following figure.

6. Ensure that the Use the current document option is selected in the
Select starting document section. The following list describes the
options available in the Select starting document section:

 Use the current document: This option enables you to add

information that you want to write to a recipient in the current
document.
 Start from a template: This option enables you to use a
predefined mail merge template. You can also customize the
template if required.
 Start from existing document: This option enables you to modify
the contents of an existing document using the mail merge
wizard.

7. Click the Next: Select recipients link in the Step 2 of 6section.

The next page of the mail merge wizard is displayed, as shown in the
following figure.
8. Select the Type a new list option in the Select recipients section.
The Select recipients section provides the following options:

 Use an existing list: This option enables you to use the recipient
details from an existing address list.
 Select from Outlook contacts: This option enables you to insert
the address list from Microsoft Outlook, which is an e-mail
application of the Microsoft Office suite.
 Type a new list: This option enables you to create a new address
list.

9. Click the Create link in the Type a new list section. The New
Address List dialog box is displayed, as shown in the following figure.
10. Click the Customize Columns button. The Customize Address List
dialog box appears, as shown in the following figure.

Select First Name from the Field Names list box, and then click the
Delete button. The Microsoft Word dialog box appears, prompting you
to confirm the deletion, as shown in the following figure.
12. Click the Yes button. The First Name field is deleted. Similarly,
delete all fields except the Title field.

13. Click the Add button. The Add Field dialog box appears, as shown in
the following figure.

14. Type GuardianName in the Type a name for your field text box.

15. Click the OK button to create a field named GuardianName.

Similarly, create fields named Address, StudentName, and Grade.

You can use the Move Down and Move Up buttons to change the
sequence of the fields as per your requirement.

16. Click the OK button to close the Customize Address List dialog
box.

17. Type the recipient information in the tabular format within the
New Address List dialog box. To add more entries, click the New
Entry button. After you type the data, the New Address List dialog
box appears, as shown in the following figure.
18. Click the OK button to close the New Address List dialog box.
The Save Address List dialog box appears, as shown in the following
figure.
19. Browse to the folder in which you want to save the address.

20. Type the name of the address file, Addresses, in the File name
text box.

21. Click the Save button to save the address list. All the information
that you have added to the data source is displayed in the Mail Merge
Recipients dialog box, as shown in the following figure.

22. Click the OK button to close the Mail Merge Recipients dialog box.

23. Click the Next: Write your letter link in the Step 3 of 6 section of
the Mail Merge task pane. The next screen of the mail merge wizard is
displayed, as shown in the following figure.
24. Click the More items link in the Write your letter section. The
Insert Merge Field dialog box is displayed, as shown in the following
figure.
25. Select GuardianName from the Fields list box.

26. Click the Insert button.

27. Click the Close button to close the Insert Merge Field dialog box.
The place holder for guardian name appears on the document, as shown
in the following figure.
28. Press the Enter key to move the cursor to the next line. Similarly,
add the place holder for the Address field on this line.

29. Type the title and body of the letter, and then insert place holders
for merge fields wherever required, as shown in the following figure.
30. Click the Next: Preview your letters link in the Step 4 of 6
section of the MailMerge task pane. The document appears as shown in
the following figure.
The Preview your letters section in the Mail Merge task
pane enables you to preview the created letters. You can view
the individual letters by using the scroll buttons in this
section. You can also eliminate the name of any recipient by
clicking the Exclude this recipient button in the Make
changes section of the Mail Merge task pane.

31. Click the Next: Complete the merge link in the Step 5
of 6section of the MailMerge task pane to complete the
merge operation, as shown in the following figure.