Creating Letters and Envelopes in MS-Word!

USING MAIL MERGE IN MS-WORD! 

Mail merge is a tool available under “Tools” menu in Word; we can create the documents like Form letters, Mailing Labels and Batches of pre-addressed envelopes.

Form Letters: A form letter is a document that contains paragraphs full of text. Examples for form letters are personalized reports, letters, memos etc.

Mailing Labels: This is a document contains a list of Address labels. Each label may have a Name and an Address for mailing. It can also be used to create Price labels for the products we sell.

Envelopes: Envelopes are documents containing mailing addresses similar to that of the Mailing Labels. But, it prints the labels one at a time on an envelope, instead of printing them as a list of labels in a sheet.

Mail Merging

Mail merge is a process of combining two files: a data file containing a list of names and addresses and a main document that contains the static text with markers to show where each bit of data should go.

For e.g., there might be a text in the form letter like this: “Hello, <<First Name>> <<Last Name>>! How are you?” After merging this with the data in the data file that contains data “Sachin” as <First Name> and “Tendular” as <Last Name>, the merged document will be like this: “Hello, Sachin Tendulkar! How are you?”

Similarly, for each and every row of data in the data file, there will be a personalized document in the merged output. If there are ‘n’ rows of mailing addresses in the data file, then the output will have ‘n’ times the same document with different names and addresses.

Steps to follow for Mail Merging to produce a form letter are:

1. Create and select the main document file
2. Create the data file and fill the data in it
3. Select the data file and merge the two together and
4. Save the merged output in a separate file or print it on a paper directly.

Main Document Creation

Main document is a document file containing the static text that must be replicated in every form document with some field markers that specifies the location for dynamic data to be inserted to produce the personalized form letters. It contains the message that has to be copied in all the personalized documents with some personalization.

For creating the main document, open a blank document. Use the “Mail Merge” tool from the current document, which will open up the ‘Mail Merge Helper’ dialogue box. Under the ‘Main Document’ section, a button named ‘Create’ is provided for creating the main document.

Click the ‘Create’ button to have a list of options that include Form Letters, Mailing Labels, and Envelopes etc. Choose the required document type for e.g., Form Letter for creating personalized form letters. A dialogue box will appear to set the current document as the Main document or to open a new Main document.

Once a document is set as a main document, the Mail Merge toolbar appears automatically on the screen. The toolbar contains buttons for some of the most common mail merge commands. The toolbar also contains a drop-down list for inserting the fields of the data file in the main document.

Data file creation

A data file is a data source, which contains ‘n’ rows of data called ‘records’. Each row has ‘m’ columns called ‘attributes’. For e.g., a data file can have ‘n’ addresses as its records and each address having attributes like -Address, City, State, Pin code in the table. Data may be kept in various data sources like Address Book in Outlook, Worksheet in Excel, Database in Access or Table in Word. The simplest data source is a Word document file that contains a table of data.

Procedure for creating a Data File

Create a table in a new Word document and fill it with data. Save it as a separate file to be used as a data source. Don’t use “Mail Merge” tool from a data source to set it as a Main Document. Otherwise, it will be considered as an invalid data source.

(or)

Use the options given in the Mail Merge tool itself after creating the main document. In the ‘Mail Merge Helper’ dialogue box, click the ‘Get Data’ button under the ‘Data Source’ section, which will drop down a list box. Select ‘Create Data Source’ option for defining the structure of the data file and to enter data into it. The ‘Create Data Source’ wizard helps the user in defining the fields for the data file, entering data into it and to save it as a document file.

When the data source is created explicitly not using the “Create Data Source” option, open the data source using the “Open Data Source” provided under the “Get Data” button. Once the data source is set, a list of data fields will be available in the Insert Merge Field list box available in the Mail Merge toolbar. Then insert the data marker by selecting the data field from this list in the right spots.

Merging the document and the data

Merge the two files (document and data) by clicking the ‘Merge’ button available in the Merge section of the Mail Merge helper dialogue box. The merged output can be directed to a new document file or to the printer. Other options that can be set using Mail Merge are:

• Selecting the range (From… To…) of records to merge
• Specifying whether or not to print blank lines when a certain record field is empty.

Experiment

1. Create a Data File containing data as given below :

   Title	First Name	Last Name	Address	City	State
   Mr.	Jeffrey	Levine	2902 Karen Rd.	Seaford	NY
   Ms.	Liz	Mohoney	7865 Stuart Dr.	Leavittown	NY

2. Create the Form Document like this:

MEMORANDUM

Date : Today’s Date

To : <<Title>> <<First Name>> <<Last Name>>

<<Address>>

<<City>> <<State>>

Re : Creative Advances in Computer Design Conference

Dear <<Title>> <<Last Name>>

I am writing to invite you to participate in the local CREATIVE ADVANCES IN COMPUTER DESIGN CONFERENCE. The conference will be in <<City>> <<State>> next month.

<<Title>> <<Last Name>>, if you would be willing to share your innovative ideas with others, we would be honored to have you chair a session on Web page design. We hope you will join us in <<City>> next month. Please contact my office if you have any questions or if you need more information.

Sincerely,

Karin Paulo

Events Planner

3. Mail Merge both the Form Document and the data file.
4. Generate Envelopes from the same data source.