Master mail merge to email in Microsoft Word

 Feb 10, 2015

Have you ever needed to send the same letter out to 100 clients? It would be very time consuming to have to create each of those on your own. A better option is to create the main document or the letter and then merge it with a list of recipients most likely kept in an Excel Spreadsheet. The mail merge function in Microsoft Word automates this process. In this example, you will be using Mail Merge in Word to send unique Online Access Keys to students by email. 1. Make sure your data source or Excel Spreadsheet is up to date in that you have pasted the correct Access Keys into a new file next to the student’s names that you want to send out today, and that the right content is in the right columns ready for the merge. The columns could be called, for example, Access Key, Name, and Email. Save and close the Excel file, and make note of where the file is saved.

2. Open up Microsoft Word and open up the file of the document that you want to send to everyone. Go to the Mailings Tab and click on the down arrow of the Start Mail merge and choose Step by Step Mail Merge Wizard.

3. On the right side of screen, from the "What type of document are you working on?" section, choose "Email messages" and then click next.

4. At step 2 of the wizard, if you already have the document that you want to send open then just leave the setting on "Use Current Document" and click next.

5. At step 3, click on the "Browse" button and locate the Excel file you saved earlier and click open. 6. When the "Select Table Dialogue Box" comes up, you can choose which sheet you have the names and emails on. Once selected, click OK. 7. Then you should see the actual names come up in the next screen. Here you could sort or filter if needed, otherwise if it looks all fine then click OK and next. 8. At the next step, place your cursor at the position where you want to insert the first field. For example, at the top of the letter where it normally says "Dear ???" Once you've located the position, click "Greeting line" on the right and choose the style of greeting you want, most likely just the first name. Then click OK. 9. Place the cursor in the letter at the position of where you want the Access Key to be and click on "More items" and choose the field from the list called Access Key and click OK. You should see the field codes that look like this in your document: <> 10. Click next to preview your messages and you should see the codes put in the real data. Then click next to complete the merge. 11. Click "Electronic Mail" on the right and choose the field for Email in the To: field and fill in the Subject field with something like “Your Online Access Key Attached” and when you click OK they will send immediately. 12. Check your sent folder to see that they all were sent.

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About the Author:

Liz French  

With over 7 years of experience as a trainer, and an extensive skill set that spans across the entire Microsoft Office suite of applications, Liz brings an incredible amount of knowledge, expertise and care to each course she delivers. Having worked as a tutor in the education sector for many years prior to her career at New Horizons, Liz has gained an extensive amount of experience in providing training to individuals and groups of varying skill levels. As a certified Microsoft Office Master, Liz is a highly capable trainer who possesses the ability to connect with students of all levels and backgrounds in order to help improve their skills across a wide range of common Desktop Applications.

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