How to Set up Mailing Merge in Word

Create Form Letter│Select Recipients│Insert Placeholders│Greeting Line│Preview Results│Complete Merge

Mail Merge allows you to create customized form letters and labels. To do this, you will first create the standardized portion of the document in Microsoft Word with placeholders for the customized data. You will retrieve the customized fields from a data source like Microsoft Excel or other databases.

Part I: To Create a Form Letter

Step 1: Open the letter written in Word you want to mail out;

Step 2: Click the "Mailings" tab from the ribbon;

Step 3: Click "Start Mail Merge" and select "Letters" from the drop-down list;

Part II: To Select Recipients

Step 4: Click "Select Recipients" from the "Mailings" tab, and select "Use an Existing List";

Step 5: Select the Excel file containing your recipients and click "Open";

Step 6: In the "Select Table" dialogue box, select the Worksheet with recipients and click "OK";

If your data has column headings, check the box of "First row of data contains column headers".

Step 7: Click "Edit Recipient List" from the "Start Mail Merge" group.

Step 8: By default, all recipients are selected. Please un-check any recipients that you do not want to include and click "OK";

Part III: To Insert Placeholders

Step 9: Move the mouse cursor to the place where the recipient's name and address information should appear;

Step 10: Click "Address Block" from the "Write & Insert Fields" group under the "Mailings" tab;

Step 11: Select "Name Format" in the "Specify Address Elements" box, and click "Match Fields";

Step 12: In the "Match Fields" window, select the columns to match all fields and click "OK";

Part IV: To Insert a Greeting Line Placeholder

Step 13: Place your cursor where the greeting line you want to insert;

Step 14: Click "Greeting Line" from the "Write & Insert Fields" group;

Step 15: Select the proper fields in the "Insert Greeting Line" window, and click "OK";

Part V: To Preview the Results

Step 16: Click "Preview Results" from the "Preview Results" group under the "Mailings" tab;

Step 17: To scroll through your letters to make sure you are satisfied with the letter.

Part VI: To Complete the Merge

Step 18: Once you are satisfied with the letters, under the "Mailings" tab, click "Finish & Merge" from the "Finish" group;

Step 19: To merge all the letters to a new document to edit each letter individually, select "Edit Individual Documents", or to print all the letters by clicking "Print Documents".