How to use Mail Merge
HOW TO USE MAIL MERGE
CONTENTS
GETTING STARTED
BUILD YOUR RECIPIENT LIST INFORMATION
HOW MAIL MERGE WORKS
LETTERS
LABELS
EMAILS
GETTING STARTED
Before you start any mail merge, you need to know who your recipients are and how you would like to send the information, whether it be via printed Letter or Email.
BUILD YOUR RECIPIENT LIST INFORMATION
So the mail merge can detect the recipient information, an excel document needs to be created which contains all of their information.
In your excel document, you will need column labels, for example; First Name, Last Name, Email. And the following information is in that same column. Only include the information you will want to include in the mail merge.
Examples below;
- Letters – First Name, Last Name, Trading Name, Address Line 1, Address Line 2, Postcode, Country, Date of the letter, Letter information individual to customer, etc
- Labels - First Name, Last Name, Trading Name, Address Line 1, Address Line 2, Postcode, Country, etc
- Emails – First Name, Last Name, Trading Name, Email address, etc
Tip: make sure to format the date and time columns to display the right format, as when converted to a mail merge it may switch to US dates.
HOW MAIL MERGE WORKS
The mail merge will take the data from a data table and populate it into specified fields to save the user time typing these all out.
The usual process for this is in the ‘Mailings tab’
- Start Mail Merge – choose a mail merge template; letters, labels, emails, etc
- Select Recipients – find the excel document that the recipient data is stored in
- Insert Merge Field – insert the field that needs to populate through
- Optional: Preview Results – will show what the document will look like
- Finish & Merge – complete the mail merge by populating all of the information into the template
LETTERS
- Open a new Word document
- Mailings > Start Mail Merge > Letters
- Select Recipients > Use Existing List. Select the excel document with the recipient information.
- Select the correct dataset in the excel spreadsheet
If you have multiple options and do not know which one to choose, open the excel document and take note of the sheet label (bottom of the screen).
- Insert Merge field > choose the field you would like to insert
Example:
- Preview results – flick through to see if you’re happy with the formats
- Finish and merge – either individual documents or straight to the printer
- Choose which records you would like to produce, either a selection or all.
This will now populate the letter contents with all of the fields populated through and can be printed, or attached to an email.
Do you want to separate each page to attach in an email? To do this, convert the word document to a PDF and follow this video instruction - https://web.microsoftstream.com/video/b780d0cf-c4bf-4529-983b-d1778f3b1056
Convert Word to PDF:
- File > Save as
- Change the file type from Word Document to PDF
- Save
LABELS
- Open a new Word document
- Mailings > Start Mail Merge > Labels
- Select the label size – this is essential so Word knows the size and ratio of labels to make printing the labels effortless.
- Choose the Label vendor (the company that produces the labels)
- Choose the produce number (which can be found on the box the labels are found in, or found at the bottom of the label page)
- Click OK – this should now populate the correct template size
- Select Recipients > Use Existing List. Select the excel document with the recipient information.
- Select the correct dataset in the excel spreadsheet
If you have multiple options and do not know which one to choose, open the excel document and take note of the sheet label (bottom of the screen).
Example:
IMPORTANT: do not change any of the ‘NEXT RECORD’ text boxes. The first label is the section where the label template is being created (deciding which fields should be placed where in the document. Before starting the next step, make sure the cursor is in the first label (will be blank)
- Insert Merge field > choose the field you would like to insert
- Update labels – will push the first label ‘template’ to all other labels
- Preview results – see how the labels will look printed
- Finish and merge – choose individual documents which will generate a new word document with all of the labels pushed through
EMAILS
- Open a new Word document
- Mailings > Start Mail Merge > E-mail messages
- Select Recipients > Use Existing List. Select the excel document with the recipient information.
- Select the correct dataset in the excel spreadsheet
If you have multiple options and do not know which one to choose, open the excel document and take note of the sheet label (bottom of the screen).
- Insert Merge field > choose the field you would like to insert
Example:
- Preview results – flick through to see if you’re happy with the formats
- Finish & Merge > Send Email Messages…
- Fill out the remaining information:
- To – select the column that includes all of the email addresses
- Subject line – email subject line
- Mail format – keep as HTML
- Send records – send all or certain records
- Check your Outlook outbox/sent folder to check that it has been sent correctly
- Tip: when doing this for the first time, replace the email addresses with your email address so you can see it coming through to make sure you are happy with the format. Once you’re happy, add the email addresses back in as it will automatically send
Do you want to attach a document along with the emails? This requires extra work from the IT team, specifically Alice Matthews (IT Trainer). Put in a ticket or email Alice directly to get this put into motion.