Mail-Merge in Word
- HAYDEN STALKER
To do a mail-merge in Word with an Excel document, you need the Excel document and the email typed in Word. Any Excel document with columns will work, you do need a column that contains email addresses like so:
Once you have your Excel Document, you can use it to create the mail-merge in Word. In Word, create a template email that you will use to send the emails like so:
To start the mail-merge go to Mailings at the top and choose Start Mail Merge.
You can either choose Letters or E-mail Messages, either will work, it only changes the view of the document.
Now choose Select Recipients and Choose Use an Existing List… and find your Excel spreadsheet on your computer.
On the window that says Select Table just hit OK
Now you can click Edit Recipient List and you should see this window with everyone from the Excel spreadsheet.
With your list imported, you can now add dynamic fields to your email by clicking Insert Merge Field and choosing a field from the Excel document. This will put a field on the document like so:
After adding the merge fields in the email, you can click Preview Results. This will let you see the merge fields filled out with the data from the Excel document. You can use the arrows to see each person in the excel document on the template.
Once you are satisfied with the results and are ready to send the emails, click Finish & Merge and choose Send Email Messages…
This will open a window that will allow you to choose the column in the Excel document that had the email addresses. In this case the column is called “Email”. You will also want to add a subject line for the email.
Once you have selected the correct column and set a subject line, hit OK and Word will begin sending the emails. Before hitting OK, make sure Outlook is open and using the correct mailbox to send from. If you want to send from a shared mailbox, follow this guide and set up Outlook first Mail-Merge as Shared Mailbox.
When you hit OK, Word will start sending emails from the currently opened Outlook mailbox. It is important to keep both Word and Outlook open until it is finished sending all of the emails.
In Outlook you should see something like this at the bottom of the screen
Once the message at the bottom goes away, then it should be done. You can also check the Outbox in Outlook and it should be empty when finished.
Emails that were sent will be in the Sent Items folder of Outlook as well when they have finished sending.
For more information on Mail-Merges here is additional information from Microsoft: