Mail merge from google sheets

Mail merge from Google Sheets! That's a powerful combination. Here's a step-by-step guide to help you achieve this:

What is Mail Merge?

Mail merge is a process that combines data from a spreadsheet (in this case, Google Sheets) with a template (e.g., a Word document or an email) to create personalized documents or emails.

Prerequisites:

  1. Google Sheets account
  2. A template (e.g., a Word document or an email) with placeholders for the data
  3. Familiarity with Google Sheets and its functions (e.g., =QUERY, =JOIN, =TEXTJOIN)

Step 1: Prepare your data in Google Sheets

  1. Create a Google Sheet with the data you want to use for the mail merge.
  2. Organize your data in a table with columns for each field you want to use in the mail merge (e.g., name, email, address, etc.).
  3. Make sure your data is clean and formatted correctly.

Step 2: Create a template

  1. Create a template in a word processing software (e.g., Microsoft Word, Google Docs) or an email client (e.g., Gmail, Outlook).
  2. Use placeholders (e.g., {{name}}, {{email}}) to indicate where you want the data from your Google Sheet to be inserted.
  3. Save your template as a file (e.g., .docx, .pdf, .eml).

Step 3: Use Google Apps Script to automate the mail merge

  1. Open your Google Sheet and click on "Tools" > "Script editor" to open the Google Apps Script editor.
  2. Create a new script by clicking on "Create" > "Script".
  3. In the script editor, paste the following code:
    
function mailMerge() {
var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSheet();
var data = sheet.getDataRange().getValues();
var template = "path/to/your/template"; // replace with the path to your template file
var output = [];

for (var i = 0; i < data.length; i++) { var row = data[i]; var templateFile = DriveApp.getFilesByName(template).next(); var templateContent = templateFile.getBlob().getDataAsString(); var mergedContent = templateContent.replace(/{{(.*?)}}/g, function(match, group1) { return row[parseInt(group1, 10) - 1]; }); output.push(mergedContent); }

var folder = DriveApp.getFolderById("your-folder-id"); // replace with the ID of the folder where you want to save the output for (var i = 0; i < output.length; i++) { var file = folder.createFile(output[i]); } }


4. Replace `path/to/your/template` with the path to your template file and `your-folder-id` with the ID of the folder where you want to save the output.
5. Save the script by clicking on "Save" or pressing `Ctrl+S` (or `Cmd+S` on a Mac).

**Step 4: Run the script**

1. Go back to your Google Sheet and click on "Run" > "mailMerge" to execute the script.
2. The script will read the data from your Google Sheet, merge it with the template, and save the output files in the specified folder.

**Tips and Variations:**

* You can customize the script to suit your specific needs, such as adding error handling or modifying the output format.
* You can use other Google Apps Script functions, such as `MailApp` or `GmailApp`, to send the merged emails directly from your script.
* You can also use other tools, such as Zapier or Automator, to automate the mail merge process.

That's it! With these steps, you should be able to perform a mail merge from Google Sheets.