Hints for Mail Merge

Use Word Help: Click on the Help menu or tap the F1 key. It will send you to a Microsoft tutorial on Mail Merge.
Each version of Word has a slightly different way of doing mail merge and a different help. Below is Help for Word XP.

Drag the edges and center bar left (or right) so a reasonable help window appears. Type "mail merge" in Answer Wizard box (see above). Select "Create and print form letters." or About Mail Merge". Then follow the step by step help.
These are also several Tutorials on the Web
Also see advice on proper format for Business Letters:

http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/~rchristian/format.htm

http://www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/BusinessLetter.html

http://www.grossmont.net/sandia.tuttle/businessletter.html

http://www.cyberbee.com/science/buslet.html

http://esl.about.com/library/weekly/aa041399.htm

http://www.cs.appstate.edu/~egp/1410_archive/Word97/bl_eg_pics.html

All letters should have:

Letterhead with your name, address, phone and email address

The date

a proper inside address block which has

the person's title first name and last name

company

street address

city comma state and zip

A salutation (Greeting Line) of Dear Title Last name: (NO first name in salutation!) and terminated with a colon since this is a businesses letter.

To get the mail merge assignment graded (or send any mail merge to someone else) you must provide BOTH

the form letter, which is always a Microsoft Word document, and

the data source, which is usually an Access database, .mdb, in Office XP (2002) but can be a MS Word .doc or Excel .xls spreadsheet

To print the data source you can either

Display the data source by clicking the Mail Merge Recipients icon

Make the window wide enough by dragging on left and right edge

Move the fields you want to see to the left

Make fields smaller if necessary

Alt + Print Scrn (key on top right of keyboard) to copy that window to the clipboard

Open a new Word document

Paste the clipboard contents

Use Page setup to print in Landscape more

Select and size the names so they fill most of the paper

Add a Header with your name and the date

Print it

For this assignment upload them both files to your briefcase and send one email that they are there.

To use them again you need to download each, mdb first, and then open the Word doc. \
This is how I grade them. (use same steps to work on your mail merger files after the 2 files have been put into the briefcase)

Download the data source by clicking on its name and selecting Save from the dialog box
(I Save it on my Desktop so it will be easy to find, but you can chose another folder.

Select Close. from the next dialog box.

Download the form letter by clicking on its name and selecting Save. But, this time, select Open from the "Download Complete, 2nd, dialog box.

Sometime Word cannot match the form letter to the data source and displays

Choose Find Data Source and find the file in the folder where you saved it in step 1. (if you store it on the Desktop, that should be easy) The form letter should open in Word merged with the first record of the datasource.

The following is a step by step, but various versions of Word differ so be creative:

Start with a blank MS Word document

Type your name, address, and email on top like fancy letterhead stationary.

Your will be working with two files:

the main document which is the letter, it is a MS Word merge document and

the data file that contains field names like first name and town and all the field values like Sally and Cranford

this can be another MS Word document that contains a table or

an Access file or

an Excel spreadsheet

Choose Tools menu Mail merge item (XP it is Letter then Mail Merge Wizard)

For Office XP the Wizard in the Taks pain to the right asks the following questions

Choose Main document and then Create and Form Letters (in XP you are going Step by Step in the Task Pane)

Select "Active Window"

Choose Get Data

If your Data file is an Access table browse till you find it and then Open it.

If your Data file be an MS Word document

Choose Create

Choose to Edit the Source Document

Word will present a list of possible fields. Remove those you don't want.
Type a field name without blanks and Add any that you need but are not there.
Type meaningful names like "email". Keep the field names short and remember fields names may NOT contain blanks.

When you've added all the fields you want click OK

Save it on studentdat "M" or your zip/floppy or Zip disk and include the word data in the name (to remind yourself)

You will then have the opportunity to enter data like Sally and Cranford etc. Enter one record and when done with it click on Add New.

When you've entered as many records as you want to now, click OK. You can always come back from the latter to the data by clicking on the icon that looks like a table with a pencil (it's usually way to the right of the mail merge toolbar)

Once back in the letter (currently blank) you should see the mail merge tool bar which has the words Insert Merge Field. In XP it is a small box to the left of the Words "Insert Word Field")

Type what is constant is every letter like "Dear " (note space after the Dear)

Click on Insert Merge Field and select a field name whenever you want to include stuff that is unique to each letter like the person's name and address, etc. You will see the field name with chevrons <<>> on either side.

To see the values click on the ABC icon on the Merge tool bar, and then use the right and left arrows to see each letter.

Remember to put spaces between your fields, just like you would have a space between Sally and Jones.

To print only some letters and not others, like just the folk who live in Cranford, choose Tools Mail Merge and Query Options.

To print the letters, choose the icon on the Merge toolbar that has the tiny printer (directly to the left of the word Merge)

Microsoft Word has an excellent Tutorial on Mail Merge as does About.com which uses Excel as a data source.

This page was created by Professor Maureen Greenbaum and was last updated on 02/04/06 .

Page Name: Hints for Mail Merge
URL:             http://faculty.ucc.edu/business-greenbaum/Intro/C100WP_MMHints.htm
Disclaimer:    http://www.ucc.edu/professional_disclaimer.htm
Copyright:      ãMaureen Greenbaum 2001, 2002. All rights reserved.