Mail Merge
M
– Preparing
P
your nam
me and add
dresses inn Excel
This sho
ort guide is in
ntended to assist you witth the settingg up of a Miccrosoft Excel file that is in
ntended
to be used as part off a mail mergge documen t when used
d in conjunction with Miccrosoft Word
d.
The key thing to und
derstand is th
hat your coluumn headerss, or categories, in Excel w
will become merge
fields (p
placeholders)) in Word. Ea
ach merge fieeld correspo
onds to a piecce of the adddress on the label
such as tthe recipientt’s name or town
t
of residdence. Word
d pulls out th
he informatioon in your Exxcel
columnss and plugs itt into the corresponding merge fieldss.
The colu
umn headerss in the Excell file should cclearly identify the type of data that each column
n
containss. In the exam
mple below we
w have useed column he
eaders Title, First Name, Surname, Address
A
1, Addreess 2, Town, County and Post Code i nstead of Co
olumn 1, Column 2, Colu mn 3 etc.
Set up your address list so that each
e
column represents the
t smallest possible pieece of inform
mation.
For exam
mple, use sep
parate colum
mns for First Name and Surname
S
rath
her than justt a Name collumn.
This practice gives yo
ou more flexxibility in thee presentatio
on of your infformation. FFor example, if you
store Tittle, First Nam
me and Surname in sepa rate column
ns, you can also use the m
mail merge to
o create
letters that address each recipient by their fiirst name or by their title
e and surnam
me.
Data sho
ould be conssistent and always entereed in its relevvant column. For examplle, if there iss no
town naame, do not shift
s
the data
a within Couunty and Posst Code acrosss to avoid a blank entry. The
Word teemplate can identify emp
pty fields, an d close up th
he space whe
ere necessarry.
Providin
ng a well form
matted Excell file makes itt easier to se
et up fields in
n the Word ttemplate. Be
elow is a
sample lletter. Becau
use we have used intuitivve labels it is easy to understand the layout of the
e
address even withou
ut any of the
e data showinng.
<Titlle> <First Name> <S
Surname>
>
<Add
dress1>
<Add
dress2>
<Tow
wn>
<Cou
unty>
<Pos
st Code>
Dearr <Title> <Surname>
>
nvesting a sm
mall amount oof time at th
he
Hopefully this guide has demonsstrated the bbenefits of in
beginnin
ng of the mail merge pro
ocess to prodduce a well fo
ormatted Exccel file, whicch will save
considerrable time an
nd effort to create
c
accurrate letters fo
or mailing ou
ut.