A Basic Introduction to Mail Merge

Mail merge is a powerful tool available in Microsoft Word, that helps create a set of documents that are the same, but where each document contains its own unique elements. A good example of this is, where one document contains a list of addresses whereas, another contains a letter, the third contains your company logo and these three documents are merged onto a third document that will contain the addresses and the letter such that the letter is individually mailed to each address in the list. In this way, mass mailing of personalized letters to a number of clients is possible within minutes using mail merge that would otherwise had taken hours to do. You can create a set of envelopes or labels where the return address is the same but the destination addresses are different and unique on each one. Similarly, a set of form letters, faxes or e-mail messages can be created whose basic content is the same but each one of them contains information specific to the individual recipient, such as the name, address, etc. We shall see how mail merge is used.

To start the mail merge process, start Word. On the Tools menu, point to Letters and Mailings, and click on Mail Merge. The Mail Merge wizard will open in the task pane on the right.

Choose the type of mail merge document that you wish to create. These include Letters, Envelopes, Labels and Directory. If you wish to send personalized letters to a group of people, choose Letters. Choose Envelopes if you wish to print addressed envelopes for group mailing. Choose Labels to print address labels for a group of people. To create a single document containing a catalog or printed list of addresses, choose Directory. We shall choose Letters and click on Starting document at the bottom of the pane.