Mail Merge is one of the most useful tools that a word processor can perform – and it’s probably the most misunderstood and under-utilised tool.

Mail Merge allows you to take a list of data, and insert it into documents such as letters, mailing labels or catalogues. Inserting information into a form can save you time, and also allow you to personalise hundreds of letters or labels at the click of a mouse.

Create personalised letters to all of your customers, or mailing labels to your suppliers to include a personalised newsletter, the applications of Mail Merge are endless. All you need is the document you’d like to insert the information into, and the list you wish to insert.

Let’s use a practical example, and work through creating a Mail Merged document.

A list of all Customers is created in Microsoft’s spreadsheet program, Excel, , listing the Contact’s firstname, surname, company name, first line of address and second line of address. This list needs to be merged with a letter about a change of address. To create this Mail Merge document, you’d follow these steps:

1. Open Microsoft Word.
2. If you have already created your letter, Open this document, otherwise ensure you have a blank document open.
3. Click on the Tools menu and select Mail Merge. You will then see a screen that looks like this:
   
   
   
4. Select Create (left click the mouse), and because we are creating a letter regarding the change of our address, we select Form Letters. We could also create mailing labels, and envelopes if we wished.
5. Click on Active Window. This will allow you to edit the document that is currently open, whether it is a previously created document that you have opened, or a blank document.
6. Click on Get Data. You can create your own Data Source, or Open Data Source. Since we already have our Excel spreadsheet, we will choose Open Data Source in this case.
7. You will then be able to browse your computer to choose the appropriate Data Source for your document. Data Source files can be other Word documents, Excel files, Web Page files or Database files. To ensure that you pick the correct one, you can change the Files of Type at the bottom of the screen. When you have found your data file, double click on the file.
8. We select our Excel file, and it will then ask which Workbook we would like to select our data from. In this case, we’ll choose Entire Spreadsheet.
9. It will then ask you to Edit Main Document. Click this button.
10. A Mail Merge Toolbar will appear. This allows you to edit your current document.
    
    
    
11. Position the cursor where you would like to insert each field, and then click Insert Merge Field on the Mail Merge Toolbar. This will insert the field into the letter.
12. Once you have inserted all the necessary fields, and have checked that the letter is correct, you can then merge your letter and data file into a new document by clicking the Merge to New Document icon.
13. This will then allow you to merge your data information and letter to a new document which you can then print out and mail to your customers!

Although the example give was based on Microsoft Word and Excel files, other word processors have the Mail Merge facility that is very similar to use. By following the Instruction manual, or help files that have come with the program, you can ensure that your Mail Merge tool isn’t going to waste.

If you need any further advice, please feel free to contact us on (02) 9870 7777.

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Using Mail Merge can increase your productivity, and allow you to send out letters to thousands of people with a mouse click.

Ensuring that you understand the basics of Mail Merge is an important first step when using the function.

You can merge from many different forms of lists, such as Text, Excel Spreadsheets, Outlook Files and Database files.