Mail Merge
|
|
|
To complete this exercise you will need to download two
files:
|
|
Once you have downloaded these files to your
hard disk proceed with the steps below.
|
|
Step 1
|
Open the Word Document "wordex22.doc".
You will see a letter about selection for Australian Underwater
Chess Championships.
Your task is to insert mail merge fields for
name and address of people to whom the letter is to be sent.
Here;s how you do that.
Step 2
Select the Mail Merge command from the Tools
menu in MS Word. This will open Word's Mail Merge Helper.
Next, click on the button labelled Create.
You will see there are four possible mail merge documents
that you can create.
|
Form Letters (for letters or any document
to be generated in multiple copies) |
|
Mailing Labels (for printing adhesive
labels on your printer) |
|
Envelopes (for printing directly on envelopes) |
|
Catalog (for generating a mailing list) |
For this exercise you should select Form Letter.
|
 |
Word will now display a dialog box as below.
For this exercise you should click the Active
Window button. The other option creates a new blank document.

|
|
Step 3
|
The next step is to find the file that has all
the names and addresses you need. That's the other file you
downloaded (msaccess01.mdb).
Click on the Get Data button. Word will
allow you to open an existing data source, or create a new
one.
Word can read many types of data documents for
example:
|
Word tables
|
|
Excel worksheets
|
|
Access database tables
|
|
Access database queries
|
|
Delimited text files
|
|
From the Get Data drop-down menu, select
Open Data Source to begin the process of selecting
the Access database file msaccess01.mdb.
|
|
|
Now it is very important for you to understand
that you will NOT be able to see the file you need UNLESS
you select "MS Access Databases (*.mdb)"
in the "Files of Type" box as in illustration
below.
|
|
Once you have navigated to the folder that contains
the file access01.mdb and selected it, Word will ask
which MS Access table has the data your require. In this exercise
there is only one table to select and it is called StudentData.
Double click on StudentData to select.
|
|
Word will now prompt you to return to your main
document so that it can be formatted to contain data. Click
on Edit Main Document. |
|
Step 4
|
Once your data source has been selected or created,
the next step is to insert merge fields into your document
so that the letter can be printed with names and addresses.
Merge fields can be inserted at any point in
your main document, and can be formatted with fonts and styles
just like normal text.
For this exercise you will insert merge fields
for the following:
- First
- Surname
- Street
- City
- State
- Postcode
When you return to your document you will now
find a Mail Merge toolbar. Click on the button "Insert
Merge Field" and you should see something like the
illustration below.
It is now a case of selecting merge fields to
be inserted into your document.
You must realise that Merge Fields will
be inserted where your mouse cursor lies.
|

|
Make sure you add a "First" field
just after "Dear" in your letter.
That's all folks!
|