About mail merge for form letters and mass mailings
Use the Mail Merge task pane to create form letters, mailing labels, envelopes, directories, and mass e-mail and fax distributions. To complete the basic process, you:
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Open or create a main document.
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Open or create a data source with individual recipient information.
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Add or customize merge fields in the main document.
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Merge data from the data source into the main document to create a new, merged document.
Data source with recipient information, such as names and addresses
Main document with merge fields that act as placeholders for recipient information
Resulting merged document
The task pane guides you through all of these steps. If you prefer to work outside the task pane, you can use the Mail Merge toolbar. Either way, the end result is that each row (or record) in the data source produces an individual form letter, mailing label, envelope, or directory item.
Note You can use mail merge to create any type of document that maps fields to data, not just mailings or directories. For example, if your videotape collection is listed in a spreadsheet, you can use the Labels option to create videotape labels.