Intermediate Word – Part III Mail Merge

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Intermediate Word – Part III

Mail Merge


Today’s Powerful Plan

• Anatomy of Mail Merge– Main document– Unique information– Data files– Finished (merged) document

• Performing a mail merge– Get set up– Choose the main document– Connect to a data file– Choose the records you want to use– Arrange the main document– Preview– Complete the merge


Anatomy of Mail Merge

• Main document– Letters, envelopes and labels– Information that is identical in

each copy, such as the main body text of a form letter. You only have to type this information once, no matter how many you intend to print.



• Unique information– When you perform a merge, a

new document is created for each set of unique information. The unique information replaces the placeholders that you added to the main document.



• Data Files– When unique information is

organized in a data file, you can control where specific pieces of that information appear in a mail merge document.



Finished (merged) document– The finished set of documents

in a mail merge consists of the unique labels, envelopes, letters, e-mail messages, faxes, or other documents that you print or send electronically.


Where data files come from

• To create a data file from scratch while performing a merge:– In the Mail Merge task pane, select

the Type a new list option and then click Create.

– The New Address List dialog box opens with a list of column headings.

– Click Customize to change the column headings.


Fields, defined

• When you add a field that represents information from a data file to the main document, it is always surrounded by chevrons (« »).

• Officially, a field is a set of codes that instructs Word to insert information into a document automatically. Informally, you can think of fields as placeholders.


Address Block

• For example, to create an address, you could set up fields in your document like this:

• «Name» «Surname»

• «Address»

• «City», «State» «Zip»


List of fields

• To see a list of Word fields, click Field on the Insert menu. To insert a field, under Field names, click the field you want to insert and then click OK. You can get information about how to use any field in Word Help. Just search for the name of the field.


Setup and connect to data files

• Columns in a data file represent categories of information.

• Each row represents one complete record.


Get set up

• To open the Mail Merge task pane, go to the Tools menu, point to Letters and Mailings, and then click Mail Merge.

• To perform a mail merge, the first step is to start Word, and then open the Mail Merge task pane. The task pane leads you through the steps to complete a merge.

• The task pane opens with a question. It wants to know what type of document you want to merge information into. In the example on the left, Envelopes is selected.

• You move through the mail merge process by clicking Next links at the bottom of the task pane. If you need to back up a step, click the Previous link.


Choose the main document

• This is how the task pane looks when you start the mail merge process from a blank document or any document not in envelope format. To choose an envelope format, as well as fonts for the return and delivery addresses, click the Envelope options link.


Connect to a data file

• Select recipients means choose the data file (called a list here) that you want to connect to.


Choose the records you want to use

• After you locate and open (or create) the data file you want to use in your merge, the Mail Merge Recipients dialog box opens. In this dialog box, you can:

• Filter the list by clicking the arrow beside the heading, and then clicking the value you want to filter by (a specific postal code, for example). You can also click (Blanks) or (Nonblanks) to display all the records in a category that do not or do contain information. You can always show all the records again by clicking the arrow and then clicking (All).

• Clear a check box next to a record to exclude that record from the merge.

• Use the buttons to select or exclude all the records, or to find specific records.


Arrange the main document

• Click the Address block link in the Mail Merge task pane to add a composite «AddressBlock» field to your document.

• The Insert Address Block dialog box opens, where you have an opportunity to specify address elements, and the format for the recipient's name.

• If you're sending international mail, leave the Format address according to the destination country/region box checked to ensure that the address will be formatted correctly.

• To avoid errors in the address block, click Match Fields to manually match columns from your data file with address elements in the «AddressBlock» field.


Preview

• You can preview your merge results before you complete the merge. At the preview step, you still have the opportunity to add or remove fields, and limit the number of records (rows) from your data file that are actually included in the merge.


Complete the merge

• Clicking Print opens the Merge to Printer dialog box. You can choose to print all of the documents you've created, just one document, or a specific range of documents.

• Clicking Edit individual envelopes opens the Merge to New Document dialog box. In this dialog box, you choose which records you want to merge into a new comprehensive document that contains all the merged documents.

Documents

Intermediate Word – Part III Mail Merge