How to mail merge from excel

Mailing merging from Excel is a powerful feature that allows you to combine data from an Excel spreadsheet with a document template to create personalized letters, emails, or other documents. Here's a step-by-step guide on how to mail merge from Excel:

Prerequisites:

1. You have an Excel spreadsheet with the data you want to use for the mail merge.
2. You have a document template (e.g., Word document, PDF, or text file) that you want to merge with the Excel data.
3. You have Microsoft Word or another word processing software installed on your computer.

Step 1: Prepare your Excel data

1. Open your Excel spreadsheet and select the data range you want to use for the mail merge.
2. Make sure the data is organized in a table format with each column representing a field (e.g., name, address, phone number).
3. Ensure that the data is clean and free of errors.

Step 2: Create a mail merge template

1. Open your document template (e.g., Word document) and create a new document or open an existing one.
2. Go to the "Mailings" tab in the ribbon and click on "Start Mail Merge" > "Step-by-Step Mail Merge Wizard".
3. Follow the wizard's prompts to create a new mail merge document.

Step 3: Link your Excel data to the mail merge template

1. In the mail merge template, click on the "Select Recipients" button and then select "Use an existing list" > "Excel Files".
2. Browse to your Excel spreadsheet and select the file.
3. Choose the worksheet and range that contains the data you want to use for the mail merge.
4. Click "OK" to link the Excel data to the mail merge template.

Step 4: Map the Excel fields to the mail merge template

1. In the mail merge template, click on the "Write & Insert Fields" button.
2. Select the field you want to insert (e.g., name, address) and click "Insert".
3. Repeat this process for each field you want to include in the mail merge.
4. Use the "Map Fields" button to match the Excel fields to the corresponding fields in the mail merge template.

Step 5: Preview and merge the documents

1. Click on the "Preview Results" button to see how the mail merge will look with the data.
2. If everything looks correct, click on the "Finish & Merge" button to create the merged documents.
3. Choose the output format (e.g., Word document, PDF, text file) and specify the location where you want to save the merged documents.

Tips and Variations:

• You can use multiple Excel spreadsheets as the data source for the mail merge.
• You can also use other data sources, such as Access databases or text files.
• You can customize the mail merge template using Word's formatting and layout options.
• You can use conditional statements to control the output of the mail merge based on specific conditions (e.g., "If the customer is in a specific region, use this address").

By following these steps, you can easily mail merge from Excel and create personalized documents for your audience.