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Creating a New Mail Merge Document

When you need to create a form letter but do not have an existing main document, you can open a new document and use the Mail Merge Helper to set up the form letter.

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Creating a New Mail Merge Document

To start the Mail Merge Helper, open a new document, click Tools on the menu bar, and then click Mail Merge. The Mail Merge Helper dialog box opens.

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Creating a New Mail Merge Document

Click the Create button to select a form letter, mailing label, envelope, or catalog as the main document type.

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Creating a New Mail Merge Document

After selecting Form Letters as the main document type, the dialog box shown here opens. Click the Active Window button to use the current document as the main document, or click the New Main Document button to specify another document as the main document.

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Creating a New Mail Merge Document

After clicking the Active Window button, the Mail Merge Helper asks you to specify the data source. Click the Get Data button to select the source.

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Creating a New Mail Merge Document

You can create a data source, open an existing data source, use your address book, or change the header options.

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Creating a New Mail Merge Document

Click the Create Data Source option to create a new data source using the Create Data Source dialog box. When using this option, you can create a new Word document that contains the data you want to merge. Click the OK button after entering all of the merge fields.

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Creating a New Mail Merge Document

Click the Open Data Source option to search for an existing data source, which can be any valid data source, including a Word document or a database.

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Creating a New Mail Merge Document

Click the Use Address Book option if the data you need to merge is stored in an address book, such as Microsoft Outlook or another personal management tool.

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Creating a New Mail Merge Document

Creating header options is an advanced feature that lets you specify a header source. A header source contains the names of the fields you are using in your data source.

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Creating a New Mail Merge Document

After specifying a data source, Word will ask you to edit the main document if it does not contain any merge fields.

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Creating a New Mail Merge Document

The Mail Merge toolbar will appear when a mail merge document is open. This toolbar contains options for working with merge fields.

Mail Merge toolbar

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Creating a New Mail Merge Document

When you click the Insert Merge Field button on the Mail Merge toolbar, the fields from the data source you selected appear in a list. Click a field to insert it.

data source fields

Insert Merge Field button

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Creating a New Mail Merge Document

After selecting the fields and creating the content of the main document, click the Check for Errors button to check the results, or click the Merge to Printer button to merge and print the documents.