MAIL MERGE Letters, Envelopes & Labels

WHAT IS IT? Handling sending the same thing to a list [maybe Christmas cards?] of people: – Envelopes – Labels – Letters

TO: LOTS OF PEOPLE The process we want to do is known as “merging” – frequently referred to as “mail merge” To carry this process out needs two sets of information – The document to be produced – “Starting Document” – Who To? – Recipient List – a “Data Source”

MAIL MERGE WIZARD Once upon a time you needed special knowledge to carry out a merge. This may still be necessary for a complex merge. For example, when different text items may need to be inserted in different letters For most personal uses “Mail Merge Wizard” will do what you want The Wizard “talks” you through step-by-step

MAIL MERGE WIZARD

BEFORE WE BEGIN: Some things to be aware of: Envelopes: Not a good plan to mix envelope sizes when merging! Use labels instead Labels: – Look through the list of labels to identify a size and manufacturer that suits. – If you buy an alternative product- double check size & layout – Check usage: some are laser only!

THE DATA SOURCE Can be created inside the Wizard – but this can be a little clumsy Can be an Excel file – created in Excel before merging begins Can be a special form of Excel file created from your Address Book/Contact List – before merging begins ALL THE DATA SOURCE MUST CONTAIN ALL THE INFORMATION NEEDED FOR THE SET OF DOCUMENTS TO BE PRODUCED

STEP 1: CREATE OUR DATA SOURCE We are going to work – initially – with an Excel file we create. This will tie together our previous work with Word & Excel To save time – this has been pre-prepared

OUR FILE

WHEN THE FILE HAS BEEN CREATED: Must be saved Can save anywhere but [in Windows 7] “My Data Sources” is the best place – the Wizard looks here first as we shall see The file must be closed before being used in a merge

SAVING THE FILE

NOW WE START THE WIZARD We see this

WE ARE GOING TO USE “ENVELOPES” AS A FIRST EXAMPLE Check “Change Document Layout” as we do not have either of the other options Click “Envelope Options” to choose the size

CHOOSING:

NON-STANDARD ENVELOPES

WE SEE OUR ENVELOPE

WANT A RETURN ADDRESS?

GO TO STEP 3

OPEN YOUR FILE “Browse” takes us to “My Data Sources” by default. If you didn’t store your file here the look where you did store it Double click to open the file

YOU WILL SEE:

NOW YOU SEE THIS

REFINE THE LIST IF NEEDED Why might this be necessary? You may have a “master list” – but don’t want to send to all of them This is a way to group if, for example, you are using different envelopes

GO TO STEP 4

WHY DO WE SELECT “MORE ITEMS”? The other options work best when the list has been created within the Wizard itself. This is the better option for a file you created

NOW YOU SEE THIS: Note that you get a list of the “titles” that you created in the Excel file. If you had NOT done this, the first line of “data” would have been lost since it would have been used as “titles”

START THE LAYOUT Click on the first item you want to use, then click “Insert” Click “Close”

WHAT YOU SEE

IMPORTANT We will be repeating this process for each piece of data we need. From a “format” aspect, each piece is inserted as if we were typing the actual data So we need to add other formatting – spaces, punctuation, returns – BEFORE we insert the next piece

MORE INSERTS

We continue until all needed information has been inserted Now click “Next” to go to Step 5

THE PREVIEW Preview let’s you look at the finished results By clicking the arrows, you can scroll through to see each one if desired

WE SEE THE MERGE HAPPENING

LAST STEP Click “Next” to go to the final step Click “Print” – make sure your printer is ready to go