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About this lesson
Merge mailing lists to print directly onto envelopes.
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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 Envelopes.docx163 KB Mail Merge to Envelopes - Solution.docx
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Quick reference
Mail Merge to Envelopes
Merge mailing lists to print directly onto envelopes.
When to use
Manually entering data into multiple form letters is tedious and rampant with errors. If you have a mailing list already established, you can easily merge the data to an MS Word document.
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 “Envelopes”, then click Next at the bottom
- STEP 2: Select Starting Document and choose “Change document layout”, and click Envelope options
- Select the envelope size to match your purchased envelopes, click OK
- You should see an envelope 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, click OK and SAVE the file.
- If you “Use an existing list”, click Browse
, find the file and click OPEN
- The Mail Merge Recipients box opens, and notice the options to sort and filter, or select only certain records.
- Click OK
- Click Next at the bottom
- If you Type a new list, click Create
- STEP 4: Arrange your envelope;
On the Mail Merge pane, click Address block; make your choices in the dialogue box and click OK
- Notice the new field
possibly appeared in the upper left corner of the envelope
- Turn on the show/hide codes
and simply cut and paste the Address block into the proper section of the envelope.
- Notice the new field
It is VITAL that you do not erase or delete the chevron marks on the field. They are “codes”.
- Type a return address if desired.
- STEP 5: Preview your envelopes; 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: Remove Space Before Paragraph
- Select all (Ctrl + A), click the HOME ribbon, Paragraph group, Line Spacing button, and choose: Remove Space Before Paragraph
- STEP 6: Complete the merge allows you to either Print or Edit the individual envelopes.
It is recommended to Edit the envelopes because it gives one last chance to preview and/or change each individual envelope.
- 00:05 Microsoft Word is a great program to use when you have a long list of addresses
- 00:09 that you need mail merge onto envelopes.
- 00:12 That's why they call it a mail merge, cuz you take mailing addresses and
- 00:15 put them on envelopes, or labels, or form letters.
- 00:18 It all begins with the Mailing button on the very top of your screen and
- 00:21 then the Start Mail Merge.
- 00:23 But just a heads-up real quick.
- 00:24 When I start this process, everything on this screen is going to vanish.
- 00:28 And so I do want to show you at the bottom of this document, the exercise file,
- 00:32 are some practice addresses.
- 00:34 Now, if you did not do the previous lesson, you don't have your exercise file.
- 00:38 Your address is already established and so these are the ones you should probably
- 00:42 practice with, unless you do have an existing list you'd rather use.
- 00:47 But in the meantime, just so
- 00:48 you know, there are practice addresses right there on the exercise file.
- 00:51 I'm going to go ahead and click over to a blank document right now.
- 00:54 Let's go ahead and start the process.
- 00:56 I'm going to click on the mailings ribbon at the top.
- 00:59 And the start mail merge button over on the left.
- 01:01 Now if I choose envelopes right now it's gonna expect me to know the process and
- 01:05 go through all the buttons on my ribbon.
- 01:07 Instead, I'm going to use this step by step mail merge wizard.
- 01:11 When that opens up, make sure to read from the top to the bottom,
- 01:15 cuz at the bottom, there's your next step.
- 01:17 But before we go further, let's make sure we choose envelopes,
- 01:20 cuz we want to tell it to point to the right document style.
- 01:23 All right.
- 01:24 So I clicked envelopes, and I'm going to go ahead and start this document.
- 01:27 Wants to know, use the current document, change document layout, or
- 01:31 start from an existing.
- 01:32 That's fine.
- 01:33 Using, changing document layout of the document I have open is fine.
- 01:37 I'll go ahead and click envelope, options now I can choose what style envelope,
- 01:42 or size envelope.
- 01:43 I can even change the font styles for my return address and my delivery address.
- 01:48 So I'll go ahead and click okay to that.
- 01:49 Now you can see I have a picture of an envelope on my screen.
- 01:54 So down at the bottom, select recipients is my next step.
- 01:57 I'll go ahead and click that.
- 01:58 Now I can use an existing list.
- 02:01 Select from Outlook contacts, yes.
- 02:03 Microsoft products talk to each other, so Word will look into
- 02:08 an Outlook contact file and deliver those addresses for you, or type a new list.
- 02:12 Now if you haven't already established a list.
- 02:15 You're gonna click type in a list, you're gonna click create, right here,
- 02:18 and you're gonna enter in the addresses from the exercise file, one at a time,
- 02:22 but there's only three so it won't take you long.
- 02:25 On the other hand, if you do have an existing list, you're going to go ahead
- 02:28 and choose existing list, and go ahead and click on browse.
- 02:33 The Browse File opens up and at the top it says My Documents,
- 02:37 My Data Sources, you may not even known that you had data sources, but
- 02:41 you do, and look at these two weird files.
- 02:44 They're always there, don't let it scare you away, just ignore all of this, come
- 02:50 back over to your left hand panel, and dig in there and find your existing file.
- 02:56 When that opens, you'll see your list of already typed addresses, and
- 03:00 you could uncheck any of these.
- 03:02 And notice down below, you could sort these by name or by city.
- 03:06 You could filter by zip code or by city.
- 03:09 You could find a particular recipient and just mail to that person, so
- 03:13 just so you know you have options in here, but I'm going to go ahead and
- 03:16 click okay, and now over on the right hand side, we're using an existing list.
- 03:21 It sees the list, and now my next step, is a range or envelope.
- 03:25 When you click that, it's going to ask you do you want to use address block?
- 03:29 Yes, cuz it's easiest.
- 03:31 I love the address block.
- 03:32 Or any of these other options.
- 03:34 I'm going to go ahead and click on address block,
- 03:37 and it's asking me, is this how you want it to look?
- 03:39 Yes it is.
- 03:40 I'll go ahead and hit okay here.
- 03:42 And now, it put the address block right up here in my return address section.
- 03:46 That's not what I meant at all.
- 03:48 Well, let's show you something that's going on with this screen.
- 03:51 When you, I'm gonna go ahead and
- 03:53 go to my home ribbon and I'm gonna turn on my show hide codes.
- 03:56 When this comes on you can see that there's
- 03:59 a hard return right here in the center of the page and one right up here.
- 04:03 So I'm going to click into this area and
- 04:05 this little block, a little outline of block.
- 04:09 That's where the address block is supposed to go, so I might have to go ahead and
- 04:13 select this address block, cut it, control x, and paste it right here.
- 04:19 So, again, now notice on this address block, there's little arrows on the side.
- 04:25 These are called chevrons.
- 04:26 It's actually code for fields.
- 04:28 And the field basically contains the address block and
- 04:31 that's where the address will go.
- 04:34 So let's go ahead now we moved it from the top and
- 04:37 pasted it right here into this block.
- 04:39 Now if I want my return address to go up here.
- 04:42 I'm gonna go ahead and type it and city, state, zip.
- 04:46 I would type my return address and it's gonna show up in every single envelope
- 04:50 it's gonna show up in that same spot.
- 04:52 Maybe in pre-printed envelopes you don't need to do that at all.
- 04:56 But we'll go ahead and move forward with this.
- 04:58 Now go ahead and take a look Wizard says preview your envelopes.
- 05:02 I'm gonna go ahead and click next, and there it is looks just fine.
- 05:05 Now it's gonna let me go to the next recipient and the next recipient.
- 05:10 Notice each one of them changes as I go back and forth.
- 05:13 So I' am pretty confident they're gonna show up just fine.
- 05:16 Now, we're not done cuz notice step five of six says complete the merge.
- 05:22 And I can print these and get those envelopes into your printer, or
- 05:27 I can edit the individual envelopes.
- 05:29 Which is going to allow me one last chance to change anything at all.
- 05:33 Now I have one document with multiple envelopes.
- 05:36 Go ahead and load those envelopes, hit print and
- 05:38 you are done with your mail merge to envelopes.
- 05:42 Okay.
- 05:42 That simple.
- 05:43 A little cumbersome but better than hand typing them.
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