Microsoft Office Reference Guide

Mar 26, 2004

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Since the beginning of MS Office Mail Merge has been one of the most popular and also most requested feature in any training session.

That's because it is so tempting to be able to use a single form letter (or label or envelope) and instantly generate a set of personalized pieces of correspondence.

Previously we've covered the mail merge feature for the Word Mail feature of Outlook. If you're still using an earlier version of Office and want to begin the process of using Word Mail, click here.

Since we're now on to Word 2007, it seems appropriate to take a longer look at Mail Merge in Word itself. If you're new to the process bear in mind that it has two components.

The first is the basic form letter, envelope or label into which you will merge information via fields.

The other component is the underlying data source, generally an address book of some kind, from which the mail merge feature extracts the relevant information.

In Word 2007, the data sources can be:

Microsoft Office Outlook Contacts lists.
Microsoft Office Excel 2003 worksheets.
Microsoft Office Word 2003 tables.
Microsoft Office Access 2003 database tables and queries.
Text files in which tabs or commas separate the columns, and paragraph returns separate the rows.

Probably the majority of users will be happy to stay with the first option — the Outlook Contacts list which serves as the most basic address book for many Office users.

At the other end of the power user spectrum will be those with Access applications — they will be able to adapt to the latest mail merge feature by checking out a previous update on using Access queries for mail merge.

Probably the easiest way to get rolling with mail merge in Word 2007 is to locate the Mailings tab of the Ribbon, click Start Mail Merge, and dive into the Wizard.

Figure 1

Where lots of folks get stuck is in step 3 of the wizard, where they need to identify a data source.

(The previous steps involve choosing the main document, which simply involves opening a new document from blank or a template, or choosing the currently open document, which is probably the most common option).

Notice that in the wizard, step 3, using the Outlook Contacts list is already an option.

Figure 2

But if we wanted to look elsewhere, and clicked to Choose an Existing List, and then Browse to locate a file such as an Excel data source, the first dialog box confronts us with something unexpected (see Figure) — mainly the files that constitute Windows and Office Data Connection Sources — that is not the underlying files themselves but the arcane drivers to connect to a variety of databases.

If that was where we needed to go, we could get into data sources — but in most cases we don't need to.

What many people don't realize is that you don't need to get stressed by this dialog box; if you have another data source in Office like an Excel table (or list) or Access table with relevant information, you can select that specific file in the Browse dialog box.

Figure 3

The key here is that the data source has a first row with column headings, selected in the options by default. If it does, you're ready to roll, click OK.

(If not, re-export your original data source or make sure that there is a first row of field names (column headings) in the data source).

Figure 4

Now you can see your recipient list in the next dialog box — here you can deselect individuals or perform sort or filter functions — but you can still do these later on the mail merge anyway. So you can click OK.

Figure 5

Now you can go ahead and insert the relevant fields into the main document using the Insert Field button.

Figure 6

For example, you can type Dear (Insert Field — FirstName) and then a colon for the greeting.

Now when you click Preview Results, you can see the merged first record in the Field (Dear "Alan").

Figure 7

In this way you can build your merge document and continue on through the wizard. Note that the Mailings tab of the Ribbon in Word 2007 has selections for the entire Address block or Greeting built in.

Once the letter is composed you can step through each merge using a VCR like interface (in the Preview panel)to go through and check how each merged document will look.

And in the final step of the wizard you can either print the set of letters (filtered for merges you may not need) or further refine the document by seeing each version individually.

Figure 8

Obviously there are those among you without the patience to go through the wizard — who consider themselves power mail mergers — and for these the Mailing tab provides other options.

Just begin from the document into which you want to merge and click the Select Recipients button and you can get right to work — either from an Outlook Contacts list or exactly the same set of options we just described.

Figure 9

Or you can use Type New List to create a database directly in Word from a perfectly fine blank address book into which you can type new entries.

Figure 10

That's pretty much the story for most mail merge type documents — except labels. They deserve a chapter unto themselves because they are tricky — which is why in the past I have used mainly a label printer to print individual labels, as I highlighted in a previous update on my beloved label printer.

But we'll do labels in the mail merge, and use the new mail merge Label Wizard feature in Access, in an update coming up soon — for those among you who love pain.

InformIT Articles and Sample Chapters

Introducing Mail Merge

Mail Merge Email

Books and eBooks

Mail and Data Merges Using Word 2007 (Digital Short Cut)

Word 2007: The Missing Manual

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