Create A Data Source For A Mail Merge

What is a Mail Merge? You can use the features in Word’s “Mailings” tab in the Ribbon to perform automated mailings, often referred to as performing a “mail merge.” When you use the mail merge feature in Word, you merge information from a table, called a “data source,” into designated fields in your document. For each record, or row, within the table, you will typically produce one copy of the document.

For example, if you had a table that contained the names and addresses of your customers, you could create a document, like an envelope for example, that would display the name and address of each customer on its face. In this example, you would create a single envelope document and place a field for the customer name and another field for the customer address on the face of the envelope. You would then merge the table data into the document- which would produce one envelope for each record in the table. Obviously, this can save a lot of time and money when creating mass mailings.

Also, while this example uses an envelope as the document type, you can also create letters, e-mails, labels, and directories using the mail merge feature. In addition, Word can use several types of data sources. You can create a data source in Word or you can use data from an Excel spreadsheet or Access database table as your data source for a merge document.

That flexibility makes this feature very useful when combined with the other Microsoft Office applications. To perform a mail merge you must first create a mail merge document.

Then you choose a data source for the document, which is often a Word data source. In the mail merge document, you enter the static, or “unchanging,” information. For example, entering a return address into a mail merge envelope. That is an example of static information. Then you insert merge fields into the document. The merge fields represent the location in the document where you want the corresponding data from the data source to appear.

Using the envelope example, you would insert fields for the customer’s name and their mailing address. Finally, you merge the information from the data source into your merge document. This often results in a separate document being created- the “output” of the mail merge. This is often useful if you still need to make individual changes to each letter. Often this document is discarded when you have finished printing it. However, you always save the data source and the merge document.

Then in the future, you can recreate the mail merge using the original merge document and the associated data source. Each time you perform a merge, you can choose to send the results of the merge directly to a printer or to a new “output” document, as desired. The Mail Merge Wizard While advanced users may want to simply create a new mail merge document, new users may find that it is easier to create a mail merge document by using the mail merge wizard provided in Word. This leads you through the process of creating a mail merge document step by step. To start a mail merge in Word, first click the “Mailings” tab in the Ribbon. Then click the “Start Mail Merge” button in the “Start Mail Merge” button group. From the button’s drop-down menu, choose the “Step-by-Step Mail Merge Wizard” command.

This will open the “Mail Merge” task pane at the right side of the document window. Here you answer the questions posed to you and click the “Next” hyperlink at the bottom of the pane to continue through the mail merge process until you are finished. The first screen of the mail merge wizard will first ask you, “What type of document are you working on?” You will select the option button that corresponds to the type of mail merge document that you are trying to create. The choices that follow in the next few steps of the mail merge wizard will vary slightly depending upon which choice you make in this screen. When you have made your selection, click the “Next: Starting document” hyperlink at the bottom of the task pane to continue. “How do you want to set up your document?” In the next pane of the mail merge wizard, Word will ask, “How do you want to set up your document?” Note that the choices vary slightly, depending upon what type of document you selected to create in the previous pane.

If you have a blank document open that you want to use as the merge document, then select the “Use the current document” choice. If you select this option, then simply click the “Next: Select recipients” hyperlink at the bottom of the task pane to continue. If you would like to use one of the pre-made mail merge templates that are available in Word, then select the “Start from a template” option.

In this case you would need to click the “Select template” command in the middle of the task pane to open the “Select Template” dialog box. In this dialog box, double-click on the mail merge template that you want to use. Note that the template can be modified, if necessary, to better suit your needs.

After selecting your template, you would click the “Next: Select recipients” hyperlink at the bottom of the task pane when you are ready to continue. You can also open any previously saved Word document to use it as the merge document. If you wish to do that, then select the “Start from existing document” option. In the “Start from existing” section that then appears, click the “(More files)” option and then click the “Open” button to launch the “Open” dialog box. Use the dialog box to browse for the Word document that you want to use. Once you have found it, just double-click the document in the “Open” dialog box to have it display in the main document window.

At that point, you can just click the “Next: Select recipients” hyperlink at the bottom of the task pane to continue. “Next: Select recipients” Note that if you selected the “Envelopes” or “Labels” option back in the first screen of the mail merge wizard, then in the second screen you will have different options than the ones that were just mentioned. If you selected “Envelopes,” then you will see two options in the task pane. If the currently open document isn’t a standard envelope, then you can select the “Change document layout” option and then click the “Next: Select recipients” hyperlink at the bottom of the task pane to continue to the “Envelope Options” dialog box. You could also just click the “Envelope Options” command in the task pane to open the “Envelope Options” dialog box, if you prefer. The “Envelope Options” dialog box contains options for printing your envelopes.

Most importantly, here is where you select the envelope size that you will be using. You can also set the display of the font for both the “Return Address” and “Delivery Address” on the “Envelope Options” tab. Then, you can click the “Printing Options” tab to set other options, such as the printer feed options and printer tray options. When you have finished setting your desired options, click “OK” to return to the mail merge wizard.

If necessary, click the “Next: Select recipients” hyperlink at the bottom of the task pane to continue to the third screen in the mail merge wizard. If you selected the “Labels” option in the first screen of the mail merge wizard, then the second screen will have options similar to the ones that you have for envelopes.

If the currently open document isn’t a standard label, then you can select the “Change document layout” option and then click the “Next: Select recipients” hyperlink at the bottom of the task pane to continue and open the “Label Options” dialog box. You could also just click the “Label Options” command in the task pane to bring up the “Label Options” dialog box, if you prefer.

This dialog box contains the options for printing your labels. First, select whether you will be using “Continuous-feed printers” or “Page printers” by choosing the appropriate option in the “Printer information” section. If you select the “Page printers” option, you may need to select from which tray in the printer you will print your label by choosing the desired tray from the “Tray:” drop-down. In the “Label information” section, select the manufacturer of your labels from the “Label vendors:” drop-down. Then select the label type that you will be using from the “Product number:” list. Once you have selected your label type, click the “OK” button to return to the task pane. If necessary, click the “Next: Select recipients” hyperlink at the bottom of the task pane to continue to the third screen in the mail merge wizard.

Choosing a Data Source Once you have selected the document to use as your mail merge document, you must next choose the data source for the mail merge document in the “Select recipients” pane of the mail merge wizard. If you already have a list, such as an Excel spreadsheet, that you wish to use for the merge document, then select the “Use an existing list” option at the top of the task pane. If you choose this option, then you will need to click the “Browse.” hyperlink in the middle of the task pane in order to launch the “Select Data Source” dialog box. This dialog box will open up and display the contents of a default folder, so you may need to navigate to the folder in which your actual data source is stored. Once you have found the list that you want to use as your data source, double-click on it in order to select it and return to the task pane. Note that you may need to select a specific table from the database, or select a specific sheet from a workbook, if you are using either an Access database or Excel workbook as the data source. Once you have selected the data source you will be using, you will see the “Mail Merge Recipients” dialog box appear.

You can use this dialog box to filter and sort the recipient information. We will examine how to use this dialog box in a separate lesson.

However, once that has been done you can click the “OK” button in the “Mail Merge Recipients” dialog box to close it and return to the task pane. If you wanted to use information from an Outlook contacts folder, versus using an existing list, then select the option button for “Select from Outlook contacts” in the “Select recipients” screen in the task pane. This will then launch Microsoft Outlook. In Outlook, you will need to select the “Contacts” folder that you want to use as the data source. Once you have selected the contacts folder that you will be using, you will again see the “Mail Merge Recipients” dialog box appear, where you can filter and sort the data from the data source. Once again, we will cover the use of this dialog box in a separate lesson, as it is fairly extensive.

Once you have finished using the dialog box, just click the “OK” button to return to the task pane. You could also create a new list of mail merge information to use by selecting the “Type a new list” option in the task pane and then clicking the “Create” button. Word then prompts you to create a new list for the mail merge in the “New Address List” dialog box. We will cover how to create and edit a data source “on-the-fly” in a separate lesson.

However, once you have created the list, you can click “OK” to open the “Mail Merge Recipients” dialog box. As mentioned, we use this to filter and sort the data used by the mail merge document. This will also be covered in a separate lesson. Once you have finished sorting and filtering the data using this dialog box, click the “OK” button to return to the task pane. After you have set the data source for your merge document, click the “Next” hyperlink at the bottom of the task pane to proceed to the next step.

Enter the Static Information In the next step of the mail merge wizard, you enter the static, or unchanging, information that will appear directly into the mail merge document. You also use the available hyperlinks in the task pane to insert various fields of information from your data source into your document at the desired positions. To insert information from your data source, click the “More items” hyperlink in the task pane. This will launch the “Insert Merge Field” dialog box.

Select the option for “Database Fields” at the top of the dialog box to see the listing of available fields from your data source. Click on the name of the field that you want to insert into the selected position within the document, and then click the “Insert” button at the bottom of the dialog box to insert the selected field. Note that if you simply need to insert some address information, you can click the “Address block” hyperlink in the task pane to open the “Insert Address Block” dialog box. Here you can select what elements of the address to insert, and then click the “OK” button to insert the selected address elements. You could also click the “Greeting line” hyperlink in the task pane to open the “Insert Greeting Line” dialog box. Here you can choose from several letter openings for your mail merge document.

Then click “OK” to return to the task pane. Also note that if you are creating labels, you only need to create the fields in the first label. You can then click the “Update all labels” button to copy the fields that you inserted into the first label to all of the other label areas in the mail merge document. When you are done creating your merge document, click the “Next” hyperlink at the bottom of the mail merge task pane to continue.

Preview the Merge Results The next screen in the task pane allows you to preview the merge results. To do this, just click the double-pointing chevrons at the top of the task pane to view the merge results prior to actually merging the data. After you have previewed the information to ensure that the merge has been performed correctly, click the “Next” button at the bottom of the task pane to continue.

When you want to print the mail merge document, you just click the “Print” hyperlink at the top of the task pane to open the “Merge to Printer” dialog box. Here you can select the range of records in the data source that you want to print. Then just click the “OK” button when you are ready to print the selected records. If you wish to make individual changes to different letters (or labels, etc.) in the merge group, you can click the “Edit individual letters” hyperlink in the middle of the task pane.

This will launch the “Merge to New Document” dialog box, where you can select the range of records to merge to a new document. This is the “output” document that is often created during the merge process. In the new document window that appears, you can make changes to the individual letters, if you wish. You can then print the new “output” document, along with any individual editing changes that you have made, in order to complete the merge. Check out this video to see an instructor demonstrating a mail merge in Microsoft Word 2013.

If your information is not already organized into a data source file format that Microsoft Office Publisher can use, you can create a data source to use for your mail merge or e-mail merge. A data source may contain only a list of names and addresses, or it may also include paths to pictures, product part numbers, postal bar codes, customer purchase history, and a variety of additional data that you want to use in a mail merge or an e-mail merge.

In this article The structure of a data source Before you create your data source, consider the kinds of information that you want to include in your final merged publication. Be sure to structure your data source file so that it has all of the data that you will need for your merge. The first row in your data source, the header row in the table below, lists the column names. These column names are the names of the data fields that you insert into your mail merge or e-mail merge publication as placeholders for the text or picture data.

Below the header row, the columns of data, or data fields, contain the specific information that will display in place of the associated merge field. Each row, or record, in your table below the header row lists a complete set of information for each record. Create an address list data source for a mail merge You can use Microsoft Office Publisher, Microsoft Office Excel, Microsoft Office Access, Microsoft Office Outlook, or Microsoft Office Outlook with Business Contact Manager to create a data source for your mail merge or e-mail merge. After you create and save an address list, you can use it over again for future mail merge projects. Use Publisher to create an address list. Open a publication. On the Tools menu, point to Mailings and Catalogs, and then click Create Address List.

To customize the columns in the New Address List dialog box, click Customize Columns, and then do any of the following:. To add a field, click Add. In the Add Field dialog box, type a name for your new field, and then click OK.

To remove a field, under Field Names select a field name, and then click Delete. To rename a field name, under Field Names select a field name, and then click Rename.

How To Create A Data Source For Mail Merge In Excel

In the Rename Field dialog box, type a new name in the To: box, and then click OK. After you have customized all of the fields that you want, click OK. In the New Address List dialog box, in the first blank row, type the information for the first entry in the relevant fields. If you plan to merge photos into your final publication, you need to type either the file name or path for each picture file that you want to use in the appropriate column or data field for each record. Do one of the following:. If you saved your picture files and your data source in the same folder, type the file name for the relevant picture. For example, type firstphoto.jpg.

If you saved your picture files in a different folder from the data source, type the complete path for the relevant picture. For example, type C: Documents and Settings Username My Documents My Pictures Catalog Project firstphoto.jpg.

If you have saved the picture files in a subfolder of the folder that contains the data source, type the partial path for the relevant picture. For example, if the data source folder contains a Pictures subfolder, type Pictures firstphoto.jpg. When you finish entering information for the first entry, click New Entry, or press the TAB key. Repeat steps 4 and 5 until you have finished adding entries. In the Save Address List dialog box, type a name for your address list in the File name box, and then click Save.

By default, the address list is saved in the My Data Sources folder. It is best to keep the address list here because this is the default folder in which Publisher looks for data sources. If you save your data source file somewhere other than the My Data Sources folder, you will have to browse to locate it when you connect to a data source during a merge.