Microsoft Excel Mail Merge

Microsoft Excel Mail Merge is one of the most useful features that associate Microsoft Excel sheets with Microsoft Word. However, this handy feature allows you to create a single Microsoft Word document that holds multiple data from Microsoft Excel. A good example is when you create a single letter for multiple recipients where the document includes the information for all recipient individually from Microsoft Excel. As a result, Excel mail merge will save your time and effort of retyping the same letter repeatedly.

Microsoft Excel Mail Merge

Tips to prepare your Excel spreadsheet for a mail merge

  • Please make sure that all column names in your spreadsheet match the field names you want to insert in your mail merge.
  • Ensure that all data to be merged is present in the first sheet of your spreadsheet.
  • Make sure to correctly format the data entries with percentages, currencies, and postal codes so that Microsoft Word can properly read their values.
  • Save your Microsoft Excel Worksheet on your local machine.
  • Make complete all data in Microsoft Excel before creating the mail merge document in Microsoft Word.

Connect Microsoft Excel with Microsoft Word

  1. Choose Mailings from the top ribbon, then choose Select Recipients.
  2. Select Use an existing list.
  3. Browse for Microsoft Excel that holds the data source and select it.
  4. Navigate to Mailing and select Insert Merge Field.
  5. Select the appropriate Microsoft Excel Column that holds the required data.
  6. Repeat step number 5 for the rest of columns.

Preview and finish the mail merge

After you insert the merge fields you want, preview the results to confirm the content. Now, you are ready to complete the merge process.

  1. Go to Mailings and select Preview Results.
  2. Choose Next or Previous to move through records in your data source and view how they appear in the document.
  3. Go to Finish & Merge and select Print Documents or Send E-mail Messages.

Save your Microsoft Excel mail merge

  1. The mail merge document stays connected to your data source after saving the document. So, it will stay ready for your next bulk mailing.
  2. When you open the mail merge document, please choose Yes when Microsoft Word prompts you to keep the connection.

For Microsoft Documentation, please refer to Mail Merge using an Excel Spreadsheet topic. For more topics in Microsoft Excel, please check our blog here.