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About this lesson
Auto-populate a sheet of labels with text pulled from a list.
Lesson versions
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Exercise files
Download the ‘before’ and ‘after’ Word documents from the video tutorial and try the lesson yourself.
Mail Merge to Labels120.9 KB Mail Merge to Labels - Solution
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Quick reference
Mail Merge to Labels
Auto-populate a sheet of labels with text pulled from a list.
When to use
Typing a page of labels can become tedious and inefficient. If you have a mailing list already established, then you can easily merge the addresses to an MS Word document of any type.
Instructions
- Begin with a blank document
- Click Mailings,
,
Start mail Merge - Click
The Mail Merge Wizard pane appears on the right side of the screen. Notice the bottom of the pane where it identifies which step you are currently on.
- STEP 1: Select Document Type and choose “Labels”, then click Next at the bottom
- STEP 2: Select Starting Document and choose “Change document layout”, and click Label options
- Select the label information to match your purchased box of labels, click OK
- You should see a label template on your screen, then click Next at the bottom
- STEP 3: Select Recipients asks you where your list is. Choose one option: Use existing, Select from Outlook, Type a new list
- If you Type a new list, click Create
, enter the data and click OK.
- You will be prompted to SAVE the file. Make sure to write down the file location because you will need that info if you re-use the same list again.
- Click Next at the bottom
- If you Type a new list, click Create
After the list is saved, your template contains FIELDS that look like:
It is VITAL that you do not erase or delete the chevron marks on the field. They are “codes”.
- STEP 4: Arrange your labels; make sure to click into the top left label box or “cell”.
On the Mail Merge pane, click Address block; make your choices in the dialogue box and click OK
- Notice the new field that appeared only in the first label cell:
- To populate all the cells with an Address Block, you MUST CLICK
- Notice all the labels cells now show:
- Notice the new field that appeared only in the first label cell:
- STEP 5: Preview your labels; If you don’t like the line spacing or fonts, now is the time to change them.
- Select all (Ctrl + A), click the HOME ribbon, Paragraph group, Line Spacing button, and choose:
- Select all (Ctrl + A), click the HOME ribbon, Paragraph group, Line Spacing button, and choose:
- STEP 6: Complete the merge allows you to either Print or Edit the individual labels.
It is recommended to Edit the labels because that is one last chance to preview and/or change individual labels.
- 00:04 On the Mailings ribbon, we have an action called Start Mail Merge.
- 00:09 Typing page labels is tedious and inefficient, but
- 00:13 if you have a mailing list already established, then you can easily merge
- 00:16 those addresses onto a Word document or mailing list or envelopes.
- 00:22 So I have an envelope example, a letter example and labels example.
- 00:26 And what we're going to do is actually use these little addresses right here
- 00:29 as an example but if you want to just look at the video and
- 00:32 do your own mail merge that's fine.
- 00:33 But there's a couple things you need to know.
- 00:36 First of all, generally we're going to start with a brand new blank document, and
- 00:40 then when we click on mailings we click this start mail merge.
- 00:44 You can choose any of these options, but
- 00:46 I highly recommend just going to the bottom one, which is step by step
- 00:49 mail merge wizard, because it's going to just walk you through this process.
- 00:53 There are six steps, notice over on the right hand side, letters,
- 00:58 emails, envelopes, labels, directory.
- 01:00 And then way at the bottom, it says I'm currently on step 1 of 6.
- 01:04 I wish this was at the top of the list, I'd probably see it easier.
- 01:07 But after we've identified that yes, we're going to do a labels mailing,
- 01:12 you just go ahead and hit next start the document.
- 01:14 Okay so I'm gonna go ahead and click next, and up comes the list of options.
- 01:19 So basically all you have to do is pay attention to this task bar,
- 01:22 and it's going to walk you through everything.
- 01:24 So do you want to set up your mailing labels?
- 01:27 I can change a document layout, or start from an existing one.
- 01:30 Yeah, I'm gonna change my document layout.
- 01:32 So that means I have to go to the next step and
- 01:33 I have to choose which labels I'm gonna use.
- 01:35 Well, I've already looked at the box of labels and I know they're 5261s Avery.
- 01:41 So, I'll go ahead and hit OK to that.
- 01:43 And then, now you're going to see a brand new document on my screen, okay.
- 01:48 It just wiped out my previous document and here I have this one.
- 01:52 And so over here on the panel again says step two, two of six.
- 01:57 Select my recipients, all right, so I'm gonna go ahead and
- 02:00 select my recipients, and read the list.
- 02:03 Use and existing list, select from Outlook context,
- 02:06 all Microsoft products actually talk to each other quite nicely.
- 02:09 So, if you're using Outlook you could actually dip in there and
- 02:11 get a list of recipients or type in the list.
- 02:14 On this occasion, I'm going to absolutely type a brand new list.
- 02:17 And so, if you read down, it says create.
- 02:20 All right, so I'm going to create a brand new list.
- 02:22 This is called a database form.
- 02:24 Okay, so in here I'm literally going to click and
- 02:28 I'm going to tab over and I'm going to type my A and the last name was Anderson.
- 02:33 I'm not gonna make you suffer through watching me do this.
- 02:35 I'm gonna the pause the video and finish this.
- 02:37 But I just want you to know, after you type one in, you hit new entry and
- 02:41 it goes to the next one.
- 02:42 I'm gonna pause, I'm gonna type this, I'll be right back.
- 02:48 Okay, all my address are types, I'm gonna ahead and hit OK.
- 02:51 And it asks me to name them, so
- 02:55 I'm gonna name them my mail merge address list, and I'm gonna hit save.
- 02:59 And you would determine where it's going to be saved on your system.
- 03:04 And now here we have the end result is kind of showing me my existing list,
- 03:09 now this isn't the mail merge, okay?
- 03:11 This is just my database that Microsoft Word is pointing to, that's all this is.
- 03:15 And I've named it mail merge address list, mdb stands for Microsoft database.
- 03:19 That's what that little code stands for.
- 03:22 Now I can sort these, filter these, I can un-check the ones I don't wanna use,
- 03:25 it's all very nice.
- 03:26 But at this point I'm going to hit OK.
- 03:28 It's all is well right there, hit OK.
- 03:31 We pay attention over on the right hand side to the list.
- 03:35 I've already created a list and now it says an existing list because
- 03:40 that's what happened on the last step and if I want I can select a different list or
- 03:45 edit that list but I want to arrange my labels.
- 03:48 Now look what happened on my screen.
- 03:50 I have a bunch of little codes that says next record.
- 03:52 I wanna point something out to you.
- 03:54 On this codes is a little arrows on the left and
- 03:57 on the right, those are called chevrons.
- 04:00 Chevron is a code that is used in Microsoft Word mail merges to identify
- 04:05 everything inside of there is a field, now if I were to accidentally click and
- 04:10 erase some of those chevrons I would break the mail merge.
- 04:12 So please be very careful with those codes.
- 04:15 So leave them alone.
- 04:15 All right, I'm gonna go ahead and arrange my labels, so I'm gonna go ahead and click
- 04:19 on that one and read the list on the right address block, greeting line, electronic.
- 04:25 I'm just going to use address block.
- 04:26 These are just labels.
- 04:27 Nothing formal has to happen here.
- 04:29 So I click address block, and it's asking me is this one okay.
- 04:32 How do you want?
- 04:33 Everything's fine.
- 04:34 I'll hit okay and there's my address box.
- 04:37 But notice, it's only in this first cell, it's not in the rest of them.
- 04:41 It's very important right here that we actually update.
- 04:45 We have to have update the labels.
- 04:47 Without this button, you only get one label.
- 04:50 With this button you get all the labels, okay, so update.
- 04:53 And now, put all the address block codes right next to the next record codes.
- 04:57 Makes perfect sense to me, cuz I've done this 100 times.
- 05:00 For you, it might be a little confusing, but don't worry about it.
- 05:03 Simply pay attention to the right hand side,
- 05:06 I I guess update labels was there as well.
- 05:07 Now I'm gonna preview, preview your labels.
- 05:10 Now previewing the labels doesn't mean I'm ready to print.
- 05:13 It's just giving me a preview.
- 05:14 Notice my preview button came on right up here.
- 05:17 Don't like the layout obviously they don't fit.
- 05:20 So I'm gonna click in here and I'm gonna press Control H is select all, and
- 05:24 I'm gonna come over here to my home ribbon.
- 05:26 Yes, it's okay to leave your mailings ribbon to go make some changes to
- 05:30 your layout on the paragraph icon and remove space.
- 05:34 Okay, so now it looks like they're going to fit.
- 05:36 I simply go right back to my mailings ribbon, leave off.
- 05:40 It's right where it left me off.
- 05:42 So scroll down, my next step, complete the mail merge.
- 05:45 Okay, just cuz I'm seeing it doesn't mean I'm ready to print.
- 05:48 Complete the mail merge, hit print, or I can edit individual labels.
- 05:52 I prefer to edit,
- 05:53 because that gives me one last chance to change something if something went wrong.
- 05:58 So I'm going to edit, then I click OK, and there we have it.
- 06:01 Of course, I've got a little glitch in my system, so here we go.
- 06:05 Now I can just print off that screen, and I'm done with my labels.
- 06:10 All right, I hope that helps you.
- 06:12 All right, thank you.
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