Mail Merge in MS-Word

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Mail merge is a tool in MS-Word that enables you to create multiple copies of a document with small changes in each.

Take an example of appointment letter. For every employee the format and structure of letter is almost identical except those information related to the employee.

Similarly consider a certificate below. Except some specific information such as Candidate Name and Address, the rest format and text of certificate remains same.

My boss asked me to create a notice to all the 2877 members of PS Exam to inform the release of ‘Mail Merge eBook’. I designed the notice as follows:

www.psexam.com

Syuchatar-1, Kathmandu

Dear <<user_name>>,

We are happy to inform you that a new pdf eBook titled ‘Mail Merge in Office 2007 and 2003′ is ready for download. This ebook introduces you with Mail Merge tool in Word 2003 and 2007.

Go, grab the ebook before it is taken offline.

Download: <<download_link>>

Suresh Khanal
Admin
http://www.psexam.com

Note: This email is sent to you because as you subscribed with PS Exam with your email address <<email>>. If you feel this is in error, you can send an email to [email protected] requesting the removal of your email address.

He was happy with the notice. This is exactly what we need to send to our members!

Look at the notice closely. Did you notice the place holders for user_name, download_link and email?

They indicate the places where the text will differ for every members. User_name will be replaced by real user name, similarly download_link and email will be replaced by real data of members.

The document above contains the structure of our invitation. This document is called “Main Document” in mail merge language.

Now, we need to send this document to all those 2877 members of PS Exam replacing those place holders. Imagine copy and paste task for those three places for all members. Oh my God! Its gonna kill anybody.

But, thanks to the mail merge operation! It will do all copy and paste work for you.

Where data comes for those user_name, download_link and email placeholders (called merge firlds)?

1. From a table in word document which stores the member information
2. From excel spreadsheet where member information is stored
3. From Access database which stores the member information
4. Any other source that mail merge supports

That’s right. Mail merge is much flexible and can accept a wide range of data sources.

Yes ‘Data Source’. This is what we call for a file that stores data to fill in place holder of Main Document. Oh yes! in mail merge language.

Mail merge operation requires two files:

1. Main Document: This is a file in MS-Word that contains the text and structure of document with merge fields in it. This is what needs to be duplicated for all individual letters. A good example is the notice I’ve displayed above.
2. Data Source: This is second file required for Mail Merge operation. This file contains the data items required to fill in the place holder (merge fields) in main document. It can be a Word document with table or Excel file or any database file. In my case I use the excel file exported from MySql database for convenience!

   Data Source file serves as the back-end to provide data for the mail merge tool. It does not matter in which format and how data are stored as long as the format is recognized in Mail Merge tool. All you see from data source is the name of fields and data that are populated. Be it in Access, Excel, Word or any other behave exactly same.

Thus, Mail Merge is to merge (combine) those two documents to create the finalized version. The merged document is obtained exactly as that of Main document but all the merge fields replaced with real data from data source.

I know, thre are too many fields in the sheet. c_id, c_phone, c_street, c_city, c_state, c_zip, c_sex, c_DOB etc are not needed for current purpose. In a database all information are collected that may need at some point. For our current purpose, all we need from this database is only c_fname, c_lname and c_email and c_download to compose our merge fields <<user_name>>, <<download_link>> and <<email>>. We’ll just ignore other fields when inserting field codes. You don’t need to delete those columns.

In real world situation any database contains all the fields and data that are required for your organization. There is a single database. And this database is used for all of the purposes, be it sending letters to customers or corresponds with suppliers or generating reports of weekly, monthly reports. From the huge number of fields and data, only the required fields are chosen for any particular purpose.

This is data source created in Word Table. If the numbers of records for your organization is fairly small (a few hundreds), you can collect data in Word Table. If this is the case a Word Document file can serve as the data source for mail merge operation. Excel is better when the number of records is greater (few thousands). For very large number of records (millions and billions) the database applications such as Access, MySql, Oracle etc. are best.

You don’t have any existing data? Then, there is only one way out. Start typing it. Yes, you are free to choose any formats – Word document, Excel spreadsheet, Access table. Choose according to how many records it will hold and if it is of future use?

Mail Merge Command in Word 2003

MS-Word 2003 provides two ways to access mail merge tool.

1. Mail Merge Toolbar
2. Mail Merge option in Tools Menu

You can use toolbar or access through the wizard on Mail Merge from Tools menu. I most often use Mail Merge toolbar since it is handy. If you are confused and until you are certain, you can use Mail Merge Wizard.

Figure 1: Mail Merge Toolbar

Figure 2: Mail Merge on Menu

Figure 3: Mail Merge Wizard

Mail Merge Command in Word 2007

Word 2007 provides a complete ribbon for mailing tasks. Check out the figure below:

Figure 4: Mail Merge Ribbon in Word 2007

What Next?

I’ll be posting tutorial on the two topics related to Mail Merge for Word in coming days:

1. How to use Mail Merge in Word 2003
2. How to use Mail Merge in Word 2007

Till then, Happy Learning!

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Tags: Cut copy and paste, E-book, Mail Merge, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Office 2007, Microsoft Word, Portable Document Format, Preparation, Word, Word 2003, Word 2007