If you would like to use one of the pre-made mail merge templates that are available in Word, then select the “Start from a template” option. If you select this option, then simply click the “Next: Select recipients” hyperlink at the bottom of the task pane to continue. If you have a blank document open that you want to use as the merge document, then select the “Use the current document” choice. In the next pane of the mail merge wizard, Word will ask, “How do you want to set up your document?” Note that the choices vary slightly, depending upon what type of document you selected to create in the previous pane. “How do you want to set up your document?” When you have made your selection, click the “Next: Starting document” hyperlink at the bottom of the task pane to continue. The choices that follow in the next few steps of the mail merge wizard will vary slightly depending upon which choice you make in this screen. The first screen of the mail merge wizard will first ask you, “What type of document are you working on?” You will select the option button that corresponds to the type of mail merge document that you are trying to create. Here you answer the questions posed to you and click the “Next” hyperlink at the bottom of the pane to continue through the mail merge process until you are finished. This will open the “Mail Merge” task pane at the right side of the document window. From the button’s drop-down menu, choose the “Step-by-Step Mail Merge Wizard…” command. Then click the “Start Mail Merge” button in the “Start Mail Merge” button group. To start a mail merge in Word, first click the “Mailings” tab in the Ribbon. This leads you through the process of creating a mail merge document step by step. While advanced users may want to simply create a new mail merge document, new users may find that it is easier to create a mail merge document by using the mail merge wizard provided in Word. Each time you perform a merge, you can choose to send the results of the merge directly to a printer or to a new “output” document, as desired. Then in the future, you can recreate the mail merge using the original merge document and the associated data source.
However, you always save the data source and the merge document. Often this document is discarded when you have finished printing it. This is often useful if you still need to make individual changes to each letter. This often results in a separate document being created- the “output” of the mail merge. Finally, you merge the information from the data source into your merge document. Using the envelope example, you would insert fields for the customer’s name and their mailing address. The merge fields represent the location in the document where you want the corresponding data from the data source to appear. Then you insert merge fields into the document. That is an example of static information. For example, entering a return address into a mail merge envelope. In the mail merge document, you enter the static, or “unchanging,” information. Then you choose a data source for the document, which is often a Word data source. To perform a mail merge you must first create a mail merge document.
That flexibility makes this feature very useful when combined with the other Microsoft Office applications. You can create a data source in Word or you can use data from an Excel spreadsheet or Access database table as your data source for a merge document. In addition, Word can use several types of data sources. Also, while this example uses an envelope as the document type, you can also create letters, e-mails, labels, and directories using the mail merge feature. Obviously, this can save a lot of time and money when creating mass mailings. You would then merge the table data into the document- which would produce one envelope for each record in the table. In this example, you would create a single envelope document and place a field for the customer name and another field for the customer address on the face of the envelope. For example, if you had a table that contained the names and addresses of your customers, you could create a document, like an envelope for example, that would display the name and address of each customer on its face. For each record, or row, within the table, you will typically produce one copy of the document. You can use the features in Word’s “Mailings” tab in the Ribbon to perform automated mailings, often referred to as performing a “mail merge.” When you use the mail merge feature in Word, you merge information from a table, called a “data source,” into designated fields in your document.