Mail Merge to Labels

Quick reference

• 00:04 Hi, in this lesson I'm gonna introduce you to a Mail Merge.
• 00:07 Now, a Mail Merge simply means taking a list of names and addresses and
• 00:11 merging them onto maybe an envelope, maybe a document, maybe a list of labels.
• 00:16 But it means you have multiple names and
• 00:18 you don't wanna have to type each one individually.
• 00:21 That's where the Mail Merge comes in.
• 00:23 Merges a list into a document.
• 00:25 If you click the Start Mail Merge button, I'm on the Mailings ribbon,
• 00:29 Start Mail Merge, we have Letters, E-mails, Envelopes, Labels, Directory.
• 00:32 But honestly I would start right over here where it says Step by
• 00:36 Step Mail Merge Wizard.
• 00:37 Go ahead and click that button and up pops your friend the task pane.
• 00:41 Now, the task pane looks a little small here, so
• 00:44 what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna double-click my Mailings ribbon to
• 00:48 collapse that ribbon 'cause that will extend my task pane.
• 00:51 Because some of these commands down at the bottom will hide if it doesn't have enough
• 00:55 room, and I just wanna be able to see them during this.
• 00:58 All right, in this case I'm starting on step number one, and
• 01:02 wants me to pick my document I'm gonna choose labels.
• 01:05 And it talks to me about the labels, and now I'm gonna go to starting document.
• 01:09 Then just read through these, how do you want to set up your mailing labels?
• 01:14 By using the current document?
• 01:16 No, change document layout?
• 01:17 Start from existing document?
• 01:21 Actually, I want to change a document layout and I wanna go to label options.
• 01:26 So, when I click label options, it wants to know what label style I'm using.
• 01:31 In this case, I do have 5360s, so I just type that in,
• 01:36 it finds that label style for Avery, and I can confirm the size and width.
• 01:41 I'll go ahead and hit, OK.
• 01:43 Yes, go and hit OK, and, here we have it,
• 01:46 this is our template, for the labels that I'm going to be printing.
• 01:50 All right, now leading over here next is select recipients.
• 01:55 I'll go ahead and click this, by using an existing list that I've already
• 01:59 pre-typed, by selecting from Outlook contacts.
• 02:02 No, I'm gonna type a brand new list, and right here I'm gonna create this list, and
• 02:07 then after I create it course that will be existing.
• 02:10 I'll go ahead and hit Create, now, this is called a database form,
• 02:13 once we do absolutely enter all the names that are going to be on my list.
• 02:17 Now, this is going to be a little tedious.
• 02:20 So what I'm gonna do is pause the video and
• 02:22 when I come back you'll see my form already entered.
• 02:27 As you can see my data has been entered.
• 02:29 I'm gonna go ahead and click OK and it wants me to save it.
• 02:36 So I type a name, save it accordingly and there we have it.
• 02:39 My Mail Merge address list.
• 02:41 At this point I can uncheck ones I don't want to send it to.
• 02:45 I can sort, filter, remove duplicates, find a certain person.
• 02:49 Of course, I only have three on my screen so it's pretty self explanatory.
• 02:52 Sometimes you'll have hundreds here and you'll want to run through it.
• 02:55 Whatever is left with check marks is who you will be mail merging to.
• 02:59 Notice right down here says Mail Merge Address List.mdb,
• 03:04 that means mail merge database, okay?
• 03:07 Microsoft database, all right, hit OK on this, and
• 03:10 here is the template, the Microsoft labels template.
• 03:14 Notice it says next record with these little arrows off to the right and left,
• 03:18 those are called Chevrons, those are field codes.
• 03:21 If you should select any of those field codes and get rid of them,
• 03:25 you break the field and it will not send.
• 03:28 So you never,
• 03:28 never want to get rid of any of those chevrons at the end of that field, okay?
• 03:33 And you see just like that I just deleted one of my chevrons,
• 03:35 I've just broken my Mail Merge.
• 03:37 So I'll Ctrl+Z to put that back, just be very gentle when you're in this area.
• 03:41 So now I've switched over on the right hand side to use an existing list because
• 03:46 I just created one.
• 03:47 I'm not gonna select a different one, I'm not gonna edit it, I already looked at it.
• 03:51 I'm gonna go here to arrange my labels.
• 03:53 So as you can see, just follow the pattern, go to the next step.
• 03:57 Okay, at this point, do I wanna use an address block, a greeting line?
• 04:01 No, it's not a letter.
• 04:02 Electronic postage, no.
• 04:04 Any more items?
• 04:05 Absolutely, I'm gonna use the address blocks.
• 04:07 I'm gonna click into this first label field, hit Address Blocks.
• 04:13 This comes up and asks me how I want it all, Mr.
• 04:17 or Mrs., I don't want any of that.
• 04:20 Insert company name, yes.
• 04:21 So it's showing me an example right here of how it's going to look.
• 04:25 And that is fine, I'm going to hit OK.
• 04:28 And now notice I have AddressBlock, then Next Record, Next Record, Next Record.
• 04:31 Here is a very important part of this step.
• 04:35 Right down here, oops, I think it went too far.
• 04:38 All right, down here it says update all labels.
• 04:42 If you don't hit the update all labels,
• 04:44 you get one label on this entire sheet labels and that's it.
• 04:47 You must hit this the replicated labels, MUST HIT UPDATE LABELS, click.
• 04:52 Here we go, and now every label has next record, address block,
• 04:55 go to the next record, address block, this is great.
• 04:57 Now, I'm going to hit Next again and preview my labels.
• 05:01 Well, that looks fine to me.
• 05:02 I think that looks perfect.
• 05:04 I have the option, I can save this right now,
• 05:07 which I would do, or I can print this right now.
• 05:11 Next, it says, right at the bottom, complete the merge.
• 05:13 Click, and here we have print or edit individual.
• 05:18 I would never, send a sheet of labels to the printer without first previewing it,
• 05:23 too many things can go wrong.
• 05:25 So I absolutely hit edit individual labels, and
• 05:29 all of them and now I have my true document, okay?
• 05:34 The one up here, the previous one was my records,
• 05:37 just kinda the template but this is my brand new document.
• 05:41 Now, if I wanna adjust how those look cause they look terrible,
• 05:44 I'm gonna select all, with Ctrl+A, select all.
• 05:47 Go to my Home ribbon, fix my paragraph alignment by removing the space.
• 05:51 I can tell you it's too close to that margin.
• 05:53 So I'm gonna push this over about a quarter of an inch using that index
• 05:58 selector on my ruler and that look pretty good, I'm okay to hit Print.
• 06:02 This is quite a process, don't be afraid of it,
• 06:05 go through this video a couple of times.
• 06:07 This is such a valuable tool that it has been forgotten but I still use it all
• 06:12 the time, so I just want to tell you it's not as hard as it looks.
• 06:16 You just need practice at a few time, all right?
• 06:19 Thank you.

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