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How to use Excel Data for a Mailmerge in Word 2003

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For the purpose of this explanation I am going to assume that you have already created the word document that you wish to merge name and address information into.

Open your document and place your cursor where you want the merge data to be entered. In the word navigation menu click - Tools - Letters - Mailings - Mail Merge.

This will open the mailmerge wizard on the right of your page. You will see the mailmerge choice at the top right of the page is showing "Letters" below this at the bottom right hand side you will see "Step 1 of 6" and an option for "Next" so go ahead and press that to proceed to Step 2 of 6.

This stage asks you about which document you want to use, as we started from that document you can simply press "Next" to proceed to 3 of 6 which is the "Select recipients" option.

In the top right section you will see "Use an existing list" and below that "Browse" click the "Browse" option and locate your excel file. You will be presented with a number of options. Usually you can accept all of the defaults. If you do need to make changes it is quite obvious what you need to choose as long as you take a moment to think about the questions.

After proceeding through the defaults you will now see the data that is in your excel sheet in a convenient list. If you want to only use some of this data you can choose which you want at this point. If you need it all you simply click OK.

Now click "Next - Write Your Letter" to take you to stage 4 of 6 and in that same Top right section click "Merge Items"you will now see the titles that are contained within your excel sheet, this is where it can be tricky because word can really mess this up for you in the formatting department.

Assuming your excel sheet contains the following items then this is what you would see in the "Merge Items" box.

Title
First Name
Last Name
Address 1
Address 2
Address 3
Postcode

Choose "Title" from the menu that opened when you clicked "More Items" and click "Insert" and then click "Close

Now press the spacebar to create a space between that mailmerge item and the next one.

Click "More Items" again and now choose "First Name" click "Insert" and "Close" and so on until all of your items are displayed as you would expect in the word document. Remember to use spaces and press return to go onto new lines after every time you have inserted an item and clicked close.

Finally, click "Next" to preview the merge if it looks ok you can press "Next" one more time to complete the merge.

You are done and ready to print.