From the course: Optimizing Your Work with Microsoft 365

Completing a mail merge

From the course: Optimizing Your Work with Microsoft 365

Completing a mail merge

“

- [Instructor] Need to send a mass communication? Mail merges are particularly valuable when you're sending an email to multiple people with individualized messages. In this lesson, I'm going to walk you through a step by step process to send a mail merge using Word, Outlook, and spreadsheets in Excel. The process starts with the main document. You'll add recipients, add fields to the document so mail merge can individualize your email message, and then send. Please note that the mail merge feature is only available in the desktop version and the step by step Mail Merge Wizard only appears on a PC. You can follow along with the sample Word document in your exercise files. It's called practice mail merge document. In this example, I'm going to send a reminder email to attendees for a customer event. With the document open, go to the mailings tab on the top ribbon of the screen and select Start Mail Merge. Then in the dropdown menu, select Step by Step Mail Merge Wizard. This takes you through the steps of sending a mail merge one step at a time. Next, select the type of document you're working on and email, then select Next: Starting Document. In the next step, the wizard lets you start from a template or an existing document. Select Use the current document, which is already open and ready. Select Next: Select recipients. You can use a list generated from Outlook, Excel, or generate a new list write in Word. For this example, I drafted a contact list in Excel, follow along by downloading the list in the exercise file. It's called email contact list example. Select Use an existing list. When you select this option, you also need to select which contacts to use, so select Browse. Navigate to your contact list and select Open. Confirm the table sheet to use, select Okay, verify that the list was imported correctly, and select Okay again. Then select Next: Write your email message. Place your cursor where you want the information to go in the message and select the information type in the wizard panel. For example, place your cursor where you want the greeting line to go and select Greeting Line. In the insert greeting line window, You can select the format of the greeting line such as salutation, name format, and more. If the recipient's name in the list is missing, Word replaces it with a generic greeting. I'll change this to, To whom it may concern. In the preview box, you can use the arrows to go through the contacts to see how each greeting will appear. When you're done, select Okay. And Word inserts the merge field, which appears as text between two arrows. Now you can add more merge fields or move on and select Next: Preview your email messages. Word temporarily replaces the merge field with entries from the recipient list so you can preview how each email will look before it's sent. This is especially helpful if your email contains a lot of merge fields. Once you've reviewed how each email will look, select Next: Complete the mail merge. You're almost ready to send out the mass email. Select Electronic Mail. Add a subject line. I'll add Customer Appreciation Day. And select Okay when you're ready to send them. You're all set. Once you have all the appropriate settings and fields in place, mail merge can help you communicate quickly to large groups while still customizing each message. Try it the next time you have to send out mass communications.

Contents