2013 outlook mail merge

A blast from the past!

Outlook 2013 does support mail merge, but it's a bit more limited compared to newer versions of Outlook. Here's a brief overview of how to use mail merge in Outlook 2013:

Prerequisites:

  1. You need to have Microsoft Word 2013 installed on your computer.
  2. You need to have a Microsoft Office 365 subscription or a standalone copy of Microsoft Office 2013.

Step-by-Step Instructions:

  1. Open Outlook 2013 and create a new email message.
  2. Click on the "Insert" tab in the ribbon.
  3. Click on "Quick Parts" and then "Document Property" to insert a mail merge field.
  4. In the "Document Property" dialog box, select the field you want to insert (e.g., "First Name", "Last Name", etc.).
  5. Click "OK" to insert the field.
  6. Repeat steps 3-5 for each field you want to insert.
  7. Once you've inserted all the fields, you can use the "Mail Merge" feature in Word 2013 to merge the data with the email template.

Using Mail Merge in Word 2013:

  1. Open Word 2013 and create a new document.
  2. Click on the "Mailings" tab in the ribbon.
  3. Click on "Start Mail Merge" and select "Step-by-Step Mail Merge Wizard".
  4. Follow the wizard to select the data source (e.g., an Excel spreadsheet), the document type (e.g., email), and the fields you want to merge.
  5. Click "Finish" to merge the data with the document.
  6. Save the document as a Word file (.docx).
  7. Go back to Outlook 2013 and open the email message you created earlier.
  8. Click on the "Insert" tab and select "Object" to insert the Word document into the email message.
  9. Resize the document to fit the email message and adjust the formatting as needed.

Limitations:

  1. Outlook 2013's mail merge feature is limited to inserting text fields only. You cannot insert images or other types of data.
  2. You need to have a Microsoft Office 365 subscription or a standalone copy of Microsoft Office 2013 to use mail merge in Outlook 2013.
  3. Mail merge in Outlook 2013 is not as robust as the feature in newer versions of Outlook, such as Outlook 2016 or Outlook 2019.