Excel: Mail Merge

October 16, 2012

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Microsoft Excel 2007

Lesson 10: Mail Merge

Mail merge is a method of sending duplicate but yet personalized letters to a large number of

people. You write the letter with placeholders for personal information (e.g., Dear

<<FirstName>>) and then fill in the placeholders using Excel as a database of names and

addresses.

In this lesson, we want to write a personalized letter to all donors from South Carolina who have

given more than $200 to our organization. We will use the Example 2 worksheet as the source

of information for our letter.

Preparing the Excel Worksheet for the Mail Merge

It simplifies things if the worksheet is set up with the

headings in the first row. Go to the Example 2

worksheet and delete the first two rows so that the

headings are in row 1.

Save the worksheet.

The Mail Marge Wizard

Although you can set up a mail merge yourself, for

beginners it is easiest to use the Mail Merge wizard,

which will guide you through the process.

Open Microsoft Word and, under the Mailings tab, select

Start Mail Merge and then Step by Step Mail Merge

Wizard.

Excel: Mail Merge

October 16, 2012

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In the Mail Merge menu on the right side of the screen, select Letters as the document type and

then click on Next: Starting document at the bottom of the screen.

Next, choose Start from a template and then Select template.

You now will be asked to select the type of template.

I decided to select the Executive Merge Letter.

When you make your selection, you will

see the template on the screen.

Excel: Mail Merge

October 16, 2012

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Now you are ready to select the people who will receive your letter.

Select Use an existing list and click on Browse to find the list.

As we noted earlier, we are going to select recipients of the letter from the Example 2 worksheet

we have used in some of the other lessons. We want to limit the recipients to people who have

given over $200 and who live in South Carolina.

Find and then open the Excel file that contains the Example 2 worksheet on your computer.

When you click on this file, you will

see a “Select Table” window.

Select the Example 2 worksheet.

Make sure that First row of data

contains column headers is checked.

Click on OK.

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October 16, 2012

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In the “Mail Merge Recipients”

window that appears, you should see

the headers from the Example 2

worksheet displayed above the list of

recipients

We need to narrow the list down to

donors from SC who have given

more than $200.

Click on Filter.

Use the drop-down lists to set the

first filter criterion as

Field = Gift

Comparison = Greater than

Compare to = 200

You should see And at the

beginning of the second row. Again

use the drop-down lists in this row to

set the second filter criterion as

Field = State

Comparison = Equal to

Compare to = SC

Click on OK when you have set the filter criteria.

Excel: Mail Merge

October 16, 2012

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You will see that the list of recipients

has been narrowed down to the seven

people who live in SC and have given

more than 200.

Click on OK.

Now we will write the letter.

Use the drop-down calendar to Pick the date. Clicking on Today will automatically select the

current date. Then enter your name and address.

Excel: Mail Merge

October 16, 2012

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Click on <<AddressBlock>> in the letter. It will be highlighted in gray when selected. Then

click on Address block. . . in the “Write your letter” menu.

A preview of the address is displayed on

the right side of the “Insert Address

Block” window.

Note that the street is not included in the

address. To fix this omission, click on the

Match Fields button.

In the “Match Fields” window, use the drop-down menu to put

Street in the Address 1 field.

Click on OK

Back in the “Match Fields” window, click on OK again.

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Do the same with the

<<Greeting Line>> placeholder.

In this case, we decide on an informal first

name greeting followed by a comma.

Click on OK.

Now we type the message

itself. We want to

specifically mention the value

of each person’s gift, so enter

the following, stopping with a

$ but no period.

We then click on More items

in the mail merge menu.

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October 16, 2012

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We select the Gift field and click on Insert, followed by

Close.

The <<Gift>> field then shows up in the text of our message.

Complete the letter and then click on Preview your letters.

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October 16, 2012

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You will see a preview of

the letter for the first donor

on your list. (It appears that

the person’s address is

double-spaced. It might be a

good idea to double-space

your own address.)

You can preview all of the

recipients’ letters. You can

exclude some if you like.

Click on Next: Complete

the merge when you are

ready

If you wanted to print the letters, you would click on Print to print them. DON’T print them. No

sense wasting paper.