|
About Us
Middle School
Elementary School
Preschool
Current School Families
Support Our School
Visit Our Church
|
Mail Merge - Excel &
Word
Excel isn't just for graphing and math functions. It is often used
to store information and that information can be shared with other
Office Applications like Microsoft Word. We are going to build a small
database of names & addresses in Excel and then we will use that
information to write letters in Word.
I want you to imagine that you just had the best birthday party
ever and all of your friends came and gave you some amazing gifts.
Your mom or dad or grandmother just told you that you have to write
thank you letters to all of the people that came to your party.
You decide to use Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word to help you with
this.
| IN MICROSOFT EXCEL: |
- Create a new worksheet and on Row 1 enter the
following information:
- Column A: First Name
- Column B: Last Name
- Column C: Street Address
- Column D: City
- Column E: State
- Column F: Zip Code
- Column G: Gift Received
- Add 10 people to this worksheet. Make up names,
addresses and what gift you received from each person.
- Save this worksheet in your folder as: Thank You List
and end out of Excel.
|
|
IN MICROSOFT WORD:
|
- First, let's tell Word that we are doing a Mail Merge.
To do that go to the Tools Menu and then to Letters
and Mailings and then to Mail
Merge.
- A Mail Merge panel will open on the right of your
document:
- Select document type
Letters as your option and then Click on ->
Next: Starting Document.
- Then Click on -> Next: Select Recipients.
- On the Select Recipients pane, choose Use an
existing list and then Click on Browse.
Browse to My Documents (and maybe to your sub-folder
in My Documents) and find and select your Thank You
List that you created above.
- A Select Table dialog will display. Just Click OK
in this.
- A Mail Merge Recipients dialog will display. As long
as you typed the headings on Row 1 as describe above,
this should be correct so Click OK on this.
- Now at the bottom of the Select Recipients pane,
Click on -> Next: Write your letter.
- Type your letter in the document space
See the example below. Your letter can be
different but should include at least the recipients first
name and what gift they gave you. You can use any readable
font you want and make it as fancy or as plain as you
want. Read the NOTE below in the gray box before you
type your letter!
Dear <<First Name>>,
Thank you - thank you - thank you!! How did you know
that I wanted <<Gift
Received>>? It amazes me how well you know me
and you always give me just what I wanted. I am so glad
that you were able to come to my party last weekend. I
don't think it would have been any fun without you.
Love (or Your Friend or Thanks Again or some other
ending),
(leave your name blank because if you really did these you
should sign each letter yourself.)
| NOTE: DO NOT
TYPE WHAT IS IN PURPLE. Instead, type whatever is
before the purple item, e.g., type Dear and then a
space and then click on More Items in the
Mail Merge panel and select the field you want in
your letter and click on Insert. Your merge fields won't show in
purple - this is just an example and makes it
easier for you to see where you should use the
insert MORE ITEMS when you are typing.
|
- When you are done typing your letter, click on ->
Next: Preview your letters in the Mail Merge pane. Use
the arrows at the top of the pane to scroll through your
letters to see if they make sense with the information you
entered on your spreadsheet and the text you typed for the
letter. Do they make
sense? Should you change the information you entered for
Gift Received in your Excel worksheet?
- Click on -> Next: Complete the merge. This
will create your letters and then save the mail merge letters in your folder as: Thank
You Letters.
|
|
In addition to creating form letters you can use Mail Merge
to create other things such as Labels or Envelopes which is
why storing address information and last names along with the
First Name and Gift Received is a good idea. You could use
Word to write your thank you letters from your list and then
use it to create address labels or to print on envelopes so
you could mail your letters. Try to create mailing labels
and/or envelopes for your thank you letters.
|
Back to Computer Lab
|
