MAIL MERGING

Imagine creating and sending an application letter to a thousand students or more who have different contacts details by
typing the address and specific details on each letter at a time. This would take a very long time and would be very tiring.

Word processing has a facility called mail merging that enables a person to type just one letter that will go to as many
people as possible but as a personalized letter for each recipient. This means the letter will have the specific details for
each of the one thousand students.

This entails creating two documents and then combining them to create one personalized document. The two documents
are:

1) Main document: This document contains the general content. It might be a letter, envelope or a mailing label.
2) Data source/ Address book: It contains details and addresses of the recipients.

Mail merging process

There are four main steps that must be followed in order to achieve mail merging:

i. Creating the main document:

To create the main document follow these steps:

a. On the mailings tab, click on Start Mail Merge in the Start Mail Merge group.
b. Select the type of document you want to create. E.g. letter, envelopes, email messages etc.
c. Type the contents of the main document in the provided space.
ii. Creating or locating the data source:

To create a new data source/address book follow these steps:

a. On the Mailings tab, click on Select Recipients in the Start Mail Merge group.
b. Select Type New List to display a dialog box.
c. Click on Customize Columns button to add, remove, rename and rearrange fields.
d. Click on New Entry button to add a new contact or Delete Entry to remove an existing contact.
e. Click on OK button to save the address list.

Alternatively, if you want to use an already created or existing address list:

a. On the Mailings tab, click on select Recipients in the Start Mail Merge group.
b. Select Use Existing List to display a Select Data source dialog box.
c. Locate the name of the data source and click Open.
d. Edit the recipients’ list if need be using the edit option provided.
iii. Inserting merge fields:
 A merge field is a place holder of data items that are stored in the data source. To insert merge fields
follow these steps:
a. Place the cursor where the merge field is to be inserted.
b. Under the Mailings tab, click Insert Merge Field in the Write and Insert Fields group.
c. Select the merge fields and insert them in their right location in the main document.
d. Save the main document.
iv. Merging the two documents:
To merge the two documents, proceed as follows:
a. Under the Mailings tab, click on Finish & Merge in the Finish group to display several merge
options.
b. Select Edit Individual Letters – This displays a Merge To New Document dialog box.
c. Click on All to create personalized documents for all the recipients in the address book.
OR
d. Click on Current Record to display a personalized document for one of the recipients.
OR
e. Click on the From To range to create personalized documents for a number of recipients in the
address book.
f. Click OK to apply.
v. Print documents
a. Displays a Merge To Printer dialog box.
b. Click on All to print personalized documents for all the recipients in the address book.
c. Click on Current Record to print a personalized document for one recipient.
d. Click on the From To range to print personalized document for a number of recipients in the
address book.
e. Click OK to apply.

Note: It is always important to preview your document before merging or printing.

Printing a document
Printing is the process of converting a soft copy document in the computer to a hard copy. This is achieved by
use of a printer which is connected to the computer.

Before printing however, it is important to preview it to ascertain that all the content you needed has been
captured. Print preview shows exactly how your document will look like after printing.

This helps you to make changes where necessary.

To print preview a document:

i. Click on File tab and select Print command from the drop down menu.
ii. In the Print window, a preview of the document will be displayed on the right side.
iii. To preview each page, select the forward and backward arrows at the bottom of the page.
iv. If the text is too small to read, use the zoom slider at the bottom of the page to enlarge it.

Printing a document:

i. Click on the File tab then select Print command to display a print dialog box.
OR
Press Ctrl + P on the keyboard.
ii. In the printer list box, select the printer you want to use.
iii. Under Page range, specify the pages you want to print.
iv. Under Copies, specify the number of copies to be printed.
v. Select any additional settings if needed.
vi. Click on Print.