How to Create Merged Letters with MS Word’s Mail Merge Wizard

Mail merge is a frequently used Word feature, especially in offices and by small business owners.

If you need to send the almost-same letter to a list of people, letters that different only in some fields (like Name, Address, etc.) then you’ll love MS Word 2010’s Mail Merge Wizard. It’s the most painless and foolproof way I know how to create merged letters for print or email.

Follow these steps:

(1) In the Mailings tab of the ribbon, click the Start Mail Merge button to display the drop-down menu:

(2) For the sake of this exercise, select Step by Step Mail Merge Wizard option to display the 6-step Mail Merge Wizard Sidebar:

(3) Leave the Letters selection as is and click Next to proceed to Step 2:

(4) Type in the letter you’d like to use for the mail merge:

(5) Click Next on the sidebar wizard to display Step 3. On this step you’ll be asked to select recipients. MS Word offers many ways to do this but for the sake of this demonstration we’ll select the Type a New List option button which will display the Create link down below. Click the Create link to display the New Address List database:

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(6) Type in values for the fields in the database. When you’re finished it should look something like this:

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(7) To change the columns, click Customize Columns button and display the Customize Address List dialog box:

(8) Add, Delete, or Rename your column Field Names accordingly. Change their relative locations on the database grid by using the Move Up and Move Down buttons.

(9) When finished, click OK to save your database on your hard disk. When prompted, give it a File Name and then click Save to display the Mail Merge Recipients list.

NOTE: Your MS Word 2010 database will be saved in the special “Microsoft Office Address Lists” format (.mdb).

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(10) Make any changes you like in the database (sort, filter, find duplicates, validate address, unselect recipients, etc.). Then click OK to save it.

(11) Click the Next button on the sidebar wizard to proceed to step 4 and write your letter (if you have not done so earlier). Select and insert merge-mail variables wherever you like in the text by clicking a location in the document (or selecting a text) and clicking one of the variables listed in the sidebar wizard.

For example, when you click the Address block… variable, MS Word will display the following Insert Address Block dialog box:

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(12) Click OK if everything is okay with the variable you’ve selected. Do the same for all your mail-merge fields. For individual variables like City or First Name, click More Items… link in the sidebar and select the variables you like from the Insert Merge Field dialog box:

The finished letter template now should look something like this:

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(13) Click Next in the sidebar wizard to preview your finished and merged letters:

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(14) Click the forward (>) arrow to see all the other merged letters. Here is for example how the letter for Recipient 2 in our example would look like:

(15) Click Next in the sidebar wizard to complete the merge.

(16) In Step 6, either click Print (or click Edit Individual Letters… ) to display the Merge to Printer dialog box:

(17) Select All. Click OK to display your regular Print dialog box to print your merged letters. Click OK again to print.

Congratulations! Your MS Word mail merge is finished.