What is Mail Merge?
The Mail Merge is an option of MS Word used to create a template to be sent to several people at a time with different details like Names, Address, Mobile Numbers, Email Id’s etc. Here we just need to change the individual details but content or the body language of the template is the same for everyone.
Here we’ll learn to use this option with MS Excel as the database.
Let’s take an example to understand it properly. Suppose you work in the accounts department of your company and you get a list of the employees from your boss whose salaries have been revised this year and you have to issue letters to all of them. The Increment excel sheet contains their Names, Departments, Designations, Employee Codes, Previous Salary, increased Salary, Dates with effect from and grades they have achieved after appraisal as follows:
Now let’s go to MS Word and create an Appraisal Letter template which will be sent to everyone as follows:
Here in this Template the Date, Employee Name, Employee Code etc. will be changed as per the excel sheet and the final template will be created for the relevant employees.
Step 1: To insert the Details provided in the MS Excel sheet in the template:
Under the “Mailings” menu click “Select Recipients” and select “Use an Existing List” as in the image below:
A dialogue box “Select Data Source” opens to go to the folder where the MS Excel Sheet has been saved, select the file and click “Open”.
Another dialogue box “Select Table” opens. Here you can select the Sheet No. which contains the data to be merged. Here our data is in Sheet1 and already selected. Click the button “OK”
Step 2: We’ll check whether all the required MS Excel data is available:
Under the same “Mailings” menu click “Edit Recipients List” a dialogue box “Mail Merge Recipients” opens where you can see all the required data as in below image:
Step-3: To insert the available data into the relevant fields in the MS Word Template:
For example, you wish to insert Date on the top left corner of the Appraisal Letter template. Put the cursor there. Go to the “Mailings” menu, click “Insert Merge Field“ as appearing in the below image:
One by one put the cursor at the relevant place in the template and finish inserting the fields. Now the “Appraisal Letter” template appears as follows:
Step 4: Final Step of Merging Data and creating a final result:
In menu “Mailings”, Click “Finish & Merge” and then select “Edit Individual Documents”
The dialogue box “Merge to New Document ?” appears as follows:
Select the “All” button and click “OK”
Now the final result templates are ready to be processed. See the below Image:
In the above image, you can see the Left bottom corner 6 templates have been created against the 6 employees as per the MS Excel Sheet.
Know more, click here
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