XP New Perspectives on Microsoft Office Word 2003 Tutorial 6 1 Microsoft Office Word 2003 Tutorial 6 – Creating Form Letters and Mailing Labels

XP New Perspectives on Microsoft Office Word 2003 Tutorial 6 2 Learn about the Mail Merge process Words Mail Merge can be used to create form letters and other documents. It combines information from two documents or sources to create a new document containing the merged information. The process includes a main document that will receive information extracted from a data source to produce a final document.

XP New Perspectives on Microsoft Office Word 2003 Tutorial 6 3 Mail merge components The Mail Merge process consists of three main components. –The main document contains placeholders, called merge fields, that denote what information from the data source is plugged into that location –The data source contains information, such as names and addresses, that replace the merge fields in the main document –The final document is called the merged document

XP New Perspectives on Microsoft Office Word 2003 Tutorial 6 4 Mail Merge documents

XP New Perspectives on Microsoft Office Word 2003 Tutorial 6 5 Use the Mail Merge Wizard Words Mail Merge task pane will walk you step- by-step through the Mail Merge process. It asks you to select the main and data documents, and allows you to insert merge fields, preview the document, and finalize the process. Every step in the task pane assists you in completing the Mail Merge process, and allows you to back track to previous steps if you have entered an incorrect option.

XP New Perspectives on Microsoft Office Word 2003 Tutorial 6 6 Select a main document The main document for a Mail Merge process can be a letter, , mailing labels, etc. After the type of document is selected, there will be three choices for selecting the actual main document. The main document can be: –A new document created from a template –The document currently open in the Document window –An existing document on a disk

XP New Perspectives on Microsoft Office Word 2003 Tutorial 6 7 Choose a starting document

XP New Perspectives on Microsoft Office Word 2003 Tutorial 6 8 Choose a data source The data source for a Mail Merge operation is the file containing the data to be merged into the main document. It frequently contains names and addresses, but may also contain other information. An existing file can be used as the data source for a Mail Merge, or you can select an option to create a new list and enter the data into it on the fly.

XP New Perspectives on Microsoft Office Word 2003 Tutorial 6 9 Select the data source fields Once the data source is selected, the fields to be included in the merge process must be identified. If you are creating a new data source, Word will open a dialog box and supply default names for the various fields which can be accepted, or the default names can be deleted and new fields added. Once the fields have been defined, data can be entered for each field. As each data record is completed, click the button in the dialog box to accept that record and prepare the dialog box for the next record. When all records have been entered, save the data source file.

XP New Perspectives on Microsoft Office Word 2003 Tutorial 6 10 Create a new data source When you select the Type a new list option in the Mail Merge Wizard pane, the New Address List dialog box will appear. If you are doing a merge with names and addresses, the default names in this dialog box will probably suffice. Otherwise, you can click the Customize button to delete fields you don't want, and to add fields that you do want. Once the fields have been defined, you can begin entering data into the field text boxes. As each record is completed, click the New Entry button to insert the record into the data source file. When all data has been entered, you can then save the data source and proceed with the remainder of the merge process.

XP New Perspectives on Microsoft Office Word 2003 Tutorial 6 11 The New Address List dialog box

XP New Perspectives on Microsoft Office Word 2003 Tutorial 6 12 The Customize Address List dialog box

XP New Perspectives on Microsoft Office Word 2003 Tutorial 6 13 A data source record with data added

XP New Perspectives on Microsoft Office Word 2003 Tutorial 6 14 Insert merge field codes into a main document After selecting a main document and a data source, the next step in the Mail Merge process is to enter the merge fields into the main document. –These are the placeholders that tell Word which data to insert into which location Word will automatically insert the current date and time into your document in a format you select. Next, select the fields from the data source file to merge. Position the cursor in the main document to where each merge field is to be inserted and select the merge data field that goes into each location.

XP New Perspectives on Microsoft Office Word 2003 Tutorial 6 15 Insert the merge fields To begin the process of inserting merge codes, you first click the Write your letter option in the Wizard pane. You will be asked if you want to insert a date and time, and can choose from many different formats. Or, you can choose to skip it. Next, choose the actual data fields from your data source from the Insert Merge Field dialog box. You should then position the cursor in the location where each data field goes, and click the Insert Merge Field button on the toolbar. You then select which merge data field goes into which location.

XP New Perspectives on Microsoft Office Word 2003 Tutorial 6 16 The Insert Merge Fields dialog box

XP New Perspectives on Microsoft Office Word 2003 Tutorial 6 17 A main document with merge fields inserted

XP New Perspectives on Microsoft Office Word 2003 Tutorial 6 18 Preview a merged document Once the merge fields have been inserted into the main document, Word allows the document to be previewed to see how it will look when data is inserted. It is an opportunity to look for missing spaces between codes, or to see if any required fields have been inadvertently left out. Any formatting problems can be spotted at this time. If errors are found, you can back up and correct the problem. Otherwise, you can proceed to complete the merge.

XP New Perspectives on Microsoft Office Word 2003 Tutorial 6 19 How to preview your document To preview your document, click the Next: Preview your letters link in the Mail Merge Task Pane. This will cause the data from the first data source file record to be inserted into a main document and display it in the Document window. If you spot any errors in your document, click the Previous: Write your letter link to back up and correct whatever problems you found. If the document looks OK, click the Next: Complete the merge link to move forward to the next step.

XP New Perspectives on Microsoft Office Word 2003 Tutorial 6 20 A document in preview view

XP New Perspectives on Microsoft Office Word 2003 Tutorial 6 21 Complete a Mail Merge The final step in the Mail Merge process is to create the final merged documents. If the merged documents do not need to be saved, they can be merged directly to a printer, which will then print each document without saving. The documents can also be saved, in which case a new document will be created containing the main document information and data source information for every record in the data source file.

XP New Perspectives on Microsoft Office Word 2003 Tutorial 6 22 Print or save the final documents By clicking the Next: Complete the merge link in the Task Pane, Word will complete the process of merging all data into merged documents. Word will assign a default name to the merged document. This final document can be printed and deleted if it is not needed again, or the document can be saved. The final document will contain one letter, or label, or e- mail, etc., for each data source record.

XP New Perspectives on Microsoft Office Word 2003 Tutorial 6 23 A final merged document

XP New Perspectives on Microsoft Office Word 2003 Tutorial 6 24 Edit an existing data source Sometimes, after a Mail Merge has been completed, you will find that there was data missing from the data file, or additional data needs to be inserted. The data source file can then be edited to add the new data, and the merge process can be repeated. The data source can be edited using whatever application created the file, or it can be edited from within the Mail Merge Wizard.

XP New Perspectives on Microsoft Office Word 2003 Tutorial 6 25 How to edit a data source It may be easiest to edit the file in the application in which it was created. You can also use the Mail Merge Wizard to edit the file. It may be easiest to edit the data source using the Mail Merge toolbar, rather than the Task Pane. Open the main document, with the field codes added, and then click the Open Data Source button on the Mail Merge toolbar. Locate and open the data source through the dialog boxes presented to you.

XP New Perspectives on Microsoft Office Word 2003 Tutorial 6 26 Edit the data source file in Word

XP New Perspectives on Microsoft Office Word 2003 Tutorial 6 27 Sort and filter records There are times when it would be better if the merged documents are in some specific data sequence. –This would be especially true if preparing mailing labels for a bulk mailing, which requires the mail to be in zip code sequence Word's Mail Merge feature allows the sorting of a data source into whatever sequence it needs to be in. There may be other occasions when only certain records in the data source file should be selected for merging. –Perhaps some company wants to mail all customers in only one or two states Filters can be applied before merging the data to the final documents, which will limit the data selected to only that data matching the filter criteria.

XP New Perspectives on Microsoft Office Word 2003 Tutorial 6 28 Set sort and filter settings You can sort data and apply filters by accessing the Mail Merge Recipients dialog box. To sort the data by some field, click the heading bar for that column in the dialog box and the data will be sorted on that column. Filters can be applied in the same dialog box by selecting or deselecting the check boxes in the first column. Removing the check box for a record means the record will not be selected when the merge is done.

XP New Perspectives on Microsoft Office Word 2003 Tutorial 6 29 Sort by specific fields

XP New Perspectives on Microsoft Office Word 2003 Tutorial 6 30 Apply a filter