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About this lesson

Auto-populate a form letter with various text pulled from a list.

Lesson versions

Multiple versions of this lesson are available, choose the appropriate version for you:

2013, 2016, 2019/365.

Exercise files

Download the ‘before’ and ‘after’ Word documents from the video tutorial and try the lesson yourself.

Mail Merge to Form Letters.docx
94.4 KB Mail Merge to Form Letters - Solution.docx
18.2 KB

Quick reference

Mail Merge to Form Letters

Auto-populate a form letter with various text pulled from a list.

When to use

Manually entering data into multiple form letters is tedious and can be 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 and click Letters:  

In this exercise we will use the Mailings ribbon rather than the Mail Merge Wizard. 
 

  1.  Select Recipients asks you where your list is. Choose one option: Use existing, Select from Outlook, Type a new list
    1. If you choose Type a new list, enter the data, click OK and SAVE the file.
    2. If you click “Use an existing list”, the file system immediately opens and expects you to find your list.  Do that and click OK or OPEN.
  2.  Edit Recipient List button lights up and when clicked notice the options to sort and filter, or select only certain records.
    1. Click OK
  3.  Address Block button
    1. In the letter click where the address will be located, click Address Block and make your choices in the dialogue box and click OK
    2. Notice the new field  appeared
    3. Remove (delete) any other address information that is on the letter.

It is VITAL that you do not erase or delete the chevron marks on the field. They are “codes”.

  1. Greeting Line button
    1. In the letter, click where the salutation, or Greeting line, will be located
    2. Click the Greeting Line button and make your choices in the dialogue box and click OK
    3. Remove any other Salutation text.
  2.   Insert Merge Field allows you to place specific data fields within the text of the form letter.
  3.  Highlight Merge Fields will put a grey background (non-printing) behind the merge fields so you can easily see them within your form letter.
  4.  Preview Results will display how the letter appears with the data displayed.  Click the arrows to view the next and previous letters.  Note: this is NOT the final document.
  5.  Finish & Merge
         It is recommended to Edit Individual Documents because it gives one last chance to preview and/or change each individual form.
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  • 00:04 Microsoft Word handles Mail Merged into forms like magic.
  • 00:09 You're really going to like this feature.
  • 00:11 Open the exercise file that matches the video,
  • 00:14 click on your mailings ribbon, over on the left we have Start Mail Merge.
  • 00:18 But we're not going to use a wizard this time.
  • 00:20 Instead we're going to use the ribbon.
  • 00:22 So I'll go ahead and click letters.
  • 00:24 And then the next step is recipients, Select Recipients.
  • 00:27 Notice my other buttons are grey, they'll light up when they know they're available.
  • 00:30 So I'll click Select Recipients.
  • 00:32 I'm not going to type a new list,
  • 00:34 I'm going to use the existing list that we used for the other two lessons.
  • 00:37 When I click this, it goes straight to my computer files and wants me to find it.
  • 00:41 Remember, don't let these little files scare you off.
  • 00:44 They're nothing you created.
  • 00:45 The computer created them.
  • 00:47 Instead, go find your own file.
  • 00:50 Now I did click my file, but nothing happened on my screen.
  • 00:53 But take a look at the ribbon.
  • 00:54 Suddenly edit recipient list is lit up.
  • 00:57 It was grayed out just a moment ago.
  • 00:59 When I click my edit recipient list, here they all are.
  • 01:02 I can add more to this.
  • 01:03 I can rearrange them.
  • 01:04 I have these buttons below.
  • 01:05 I can sort, filter, find duplicates.
  • 01:08 I'm okay with everything there, so I'll click OK.
  • 01:11 Now, look at the rest of my ribbon, they started to light up.
  • 01:13 Now, this Highlight field isn't lit up, but Address Block is.
  • 01:16 So, I'm going to go ahead and click right here where my address would start and
  • 01:20 I'll hit Address Block.
  • 01:21 It's asking me, do you like this format?
  • 01:23 Do you want to make any changes?
  • 01:25 All seems fine to me.
  • 01:26 I'll hit OK.
  • 01:27 And notice, it threw in AddressBlock with those chevron arrows at the end.
  • 01:32 Do not delete those!
  • 01:34 Remember, those are code.
  • 01:35 So I'm going to hit Enter at the end of that.
  • 01:37 And I'm just going to delete the address block that I just typed.
  • 01:41 Don't need that at all, because this one will take care of it.
  • 01:44 Next, we're going to go ahead and put in a greeting line right here.
  • 01:49 First of all, I put my insertion point beside the Dear FirstName.
  • 01:52 When I click greeting line it wants to know, do you wanna start with dear or to?
  • 01:57 Would you like to be formal with Mr.Randall, Mr. and Mrs.
  • 02:00 Randall, or maybe just someone named Josh.
  • 02:02 This list here is just samples for you.
  • 02:04 Do you want to follow that with a comma, a colon, or nothing at all?
  • 02:08 Well, comma is fine.
  • 02:10 If it's missing a first name, would you like to follow it,
  • 02:13 replace it with dear sir or madam or to whom it may concern?
  • 02:16 See the options are awesome in here.
  • 02:18 I'm gonna ahead and click OK to that and now it put in chevrons GreetingLine.
  • 02:22 So now I don't even need this part, I don't even have to type a comma there
  • 02:26 because it's already gonna be in the GreetingLine.
  • 02:29 Well now comes to the good part.
  • 02:30 Within the letter itself, I've got some words written here, CompanyNameHere.
  • 02:35 That was just a flag to myself where I was gonna put the fields.
  • 02:38 And this button right up here,
  • 02:40 Insert Merge Field is the magic in Microsoft Word.
  • 02:44 When you understand that this field happens to match all the fields in
  • 02:48 that tiny little database you created, you'll get this from now on.
  • 02:53 So the way to tell Microsoft Word to put a company name there is actually highlight
  • 02:58 that section, highlight that little phrase right there,
  • 03:01 come up to merge field, and tell it company name.
  • 03:04 Now watch what replaces what that underline is.
  • 03:08 There it is, Company_Name with chevrons.
  • 03:10 Which is code, to tell the computer what to place there.
  • 03:13 Let's do the next one, StreetAddressHere, I'm going to double click that word.
  • 03:17 It selects the word.
  • 03:18 I'm going to come up to Insert Merge Field, and
  • 03:21 I'm going to put, let's see, address line there and again we've got the fields.
  • 03:26 Now another button lit up.
  • 03:28 This Highlight Merge Field wasn't there a couple minutes ago but now it is.
  • 03:31 Watch what happens when I hit that.
  • 03:33 It actually turns gray.
  • 03:35 All the fields with chevrons on them,
  • 03:37 which is an incredible help especially if it's a long form letter and
  • 03:41 you have a hard time seeing where all your codes are this will help you.
  • 03:44 They won't print great they just light up on the screen.
  • 03:47 At this point we're done.
  • 03:48 If you wanna go further and examine rules or you wanna know what match fields are,
  • 03:51 just float your mouse.
  • 03:52 It'll tell you what those are.
  • 03:54 Let's go ahead and hit the next button, preview results.
  • 03:57 When I click this, it's actually showing me how the letter's gonna look.
  • 04:01 Now I can hit the arrow to go forward to the next one, and the next one.
  • 04:04 And because the fields are all lit up you can actually see them change.
  • 04:08 As I click through them, you can actually see them change.
  • 04:11 I guess I'm done here.
  • 04:12 If I wanna find a certain recipient, I can do that.
  • 04:14 If I wanna check for errors, I could do that.
  • 04:17 But what I'm gonna do is finish and merge.
  • 04:19 When you click finish and merge you have the option to edit individual documents,
  • 04:24 which I highly strongly recommend you do.
  • 04:27 Or I could hit print documents and it's going to shoot these right to your printer
  • 04:31 and no last chance to make any corrections or preview.
  • 04:34 I don't really recommend that but it's up to you, and then I could also send email
  • 04:38 messages with these, and send these off through Outlook using email addresses,
  • 04:43 which I didn't use, so I can't do it here, but I could next time.
  • 04:46 All right, so I'm gonna hit Edit Individual Documents,
  • 04:49 you're gonna see something change.
  • 04:50 My title bar is gonna change right now to a brand new name and
  • 04:55 its gonna to say Letters 2 because this is the second one Ive done.
  • 04:58 And there's my letters.
  • 05:00 And if you notice down here it says page 1 of 3 because I had 3 letters in there.
  • 05:05 All right, three addresses, three letters, it worked, I'm happy.
  • 05:08 So I hope it worked for you.
  • 05:10 You're gonna love this when you get really good at it.

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