Ryan's District Boards

A Mail Merge Tutorial.
What is Mail Merge?
How to use Mail Merge in MS Word?


Sometimes you may need to send the same email to many persons. But in order to personalize your email, you may want to add the recipient's name in the beginning of the email before sending to each one. For this, you need not open the same file again and again and type the recipient's Name and send one by one. The 'Mail Merge' feature in MS Word will help you achieve this very easily. You need to create an Address book once with all your contacts. This address book will store details of all your contacts, their names, addresses, email addresses etc. You just need to create this ONCE. This word file is called 'Data Source' in MS Word.

Actually this data source is nothing but a table. In this table, the details of one person will be represented in a single row. This row is called a record. In that table, the names of all the persons will appear in the same column. The next column will contain the addresses and so on. This column is called a 'Field'.

First of all type all the common email contents in a word document. In the place where you want to insert the name of the recipient, do not type the name, instead insert the 'Name Field'. Similarly insert the 'Address field'. Once you have done this, save this file. This is called the 'Main Document'.

Now to integrate the 'data source' that contains your contact list and the 'Main document' you need to give the 'Mail Merge' command. This will create as many emails as the number of contacts in the 'data source'. Each will be personalised with their own name and address but with the same content.

To create the 'Main Document'

Open MS Word.

Type the common contents of the email as you wish.

Since this document is common to all recipients, do not type the name and address of the recipients in this document. Instead in the place where you want the name and address to appear, leave appropriate space. Now save the file and leave it open.

To create the Mail Merge document.

If you have already created the 'Data source' then you can use it. If you do not have a data source then follow these steps to create a new data source.

In the 'Main Document' select 'Tool-Mail Merge' option. This will open the 'Mail merge helper' dialog box. In 'Step 1' click the 'Create' button. Now click on 'Form Letter' and click 'Active Window'. In 'Step 2' click 'Get Data' and select 'Create data source'.

Now you will see many fields. You can remove the unwanted fields by selecting them and clicking on 'Remove'. You can also create new fields if you want to. You can also move the fields up or down to change the order. Now click on 'OK' to save the data source file .

Now you have to create each record. So click on 'Edit Data Source'. You will see a blank form with the fields that you had selected. Fill up the details in this form and click on 'Add New' button. This will save the current record and open the new blank record. In this new form type the next person's details. Likewise enter the details of all your contacts and finally click 'OK'.

To insert the fields into the main document:

After you click 'OK' in the previous step the 'Mail Merge Helper' box will close. But a new 'Mai Merge' toolbar will be visible in the main document now. In the main document bring the cursor to the place where you want to insert the recipient's name. Now in the 'Mail Merge' toolbar click on the 'Insert Merge Field' button. You will now see the list of all the fields in the data source. Select the 'Name' field from the list. Likewise bring the cursor to the appropriate places and insert other fields as required. If you want two fields next to each other in the same line then leave a blank space between the two and insert the fields.

To integrate the data source and the main document:

Click the 'Tools-Mail Merge' option from the menu. The 'Mail Merge Helper' box will open again. Now click on step 3, 'Merge' button.