Create personalized letters

  • Before turn a Word letter into a Mail merge document, you need to create a simple letter and identify two portions in the documents:

    • (1) The portions are constant text that will be the same for every single recipient (date, message text)

    • (2) The portions are variable text (address block, first name in the greeting line and closing line). The portion containing variable text will be replaced with the information from a data source

  • Click Mailing tab > go to Start Mail Merge group > click Start Mail Merge > choose Letter…

  • Click File tab > choose Save As > rename the filename to indicate a mail merge document

 

Choose or create a data source

  • Word mail merge uses two files: (1) a primary document such as a Word letter, and (2) a secondary data source which is structured variable data used to merge into the variable portions in the primary document

  • With Word mail merge, you can choose data from a wide range of data sources such as:

    • Type New List…

      • A new list form mail merge data source in Microsoft Word that will be stored in a small Access database

    • Use Existing List…

      • Excel

      • Access

      • Other databases like SQL Server and Oracle

    • Select from Outlook Contacts…

      • Any Contacts folder, including public folders

  • After you select the data source for the primary document, you need to save the primary document again in order to save the connection to your data source file

  • Even though the data source you choose might have more records that you want to use in any specific mail merge, you can sort and filter to use some or all the records in your Word mail merge after deciding what type of data source you want to use and connect to your primary document


Open an existing file

When you re-open a mail merge letter, Word will display some prompt windows

  • A prompt window addresses that this mail merge letter is connected to a database.

    • If you want to keep the connection between the primary document and the database, click Yes

  • A prompt widow alerts that the data source connected to the primary document can’t be found or accessible

    • Click OK

    • In the Data Link Properties dialog box, click OK

    • Click OK again

    • Click Find Data Source… button

    • In the Select Data Source dialog box, browse and find the data source location