Use Outlook contacts as a data source for a mail merge
You can use Microsoft Office Word 2003 to start a mail merge operation
using the Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 Contacts list.
In Word, on the Tools menu, point to Letters and Mailings, and then
click Mail Merge.
The task pane guides you through the the mail-merge process.
Under Select document type, click the type of document you want to
work on for mail merging.
The active document becomes the main document (main document: In a
mail-merge operation in Word, the document that contains the text and
graphics that are the same for each version of the merged document,
for example, the return address or salutation in a form letter.).
Click Next: Starting document.
Word displays the document in the document window. If you want to use
a different document, click Start from existing document or Start from
a template, and then select a different document or template. If you
want to change the look of labels, click Change document layout.
Click Next: Select recipients.
Click Select from Outlook contacts, and then click Choose Contacts
Folder as your data source.
In the Select Contact List Folder dialog box, select the Contacts
folder you want to use, and then click OK.
The list of recipients appears in the Mail Merge Recipients dialog
box, where you can refine the list of recipients. For example, you
might want to send a form letter to only those customers in your file
with a specific postal code.
How?
Do one of the following:
Use the check boxes to designate recipients
This method is most useful if your list is short.
Select the check boxes next to the recipients you want to include, and
clear the ones next to the recipients you want to exclude.
Tip
If you know you want to include most of the list in your merge,
clicking Select All first makes it easy to clear particular records.
Similarly, if you want to include only a few records in the list,
click Clear All, and then select the records you want.
Sort items in the list
This is useful if you want to see items in alphabetical or numeric order.
Click the column heading of the item you want to sort by. For example,
if you want to display the list alphabetically by last name, click the
Last Name column heading.
Filter items in the list
This is useful if the list contains records that you know you don't
want to see or include in the merge. Once you have filtered the list,
you can use the check boxes to include and exclude records as
described in the previous section.
Click the arrow next to the column heading of the item you want to filter by.
Click any of the following:
(Blanks) displays all the records in which the corresponding field is blank.
(Nonblanks) displays all the records in which the corresponding field
contains information.
(Advanced) allows advanced sorting and filtering. Use the Filter
Records and Sort Records tabs to set up the sorting or filtering query
you want. For example, if your data source contains records that share
the same information, and there are 10 or fewer unique values in the
column, you can filter by specific information. If there are multiple
addresses that list Australia as the country/region, you can filter on
Australia.
The Mail Merge Recipients dialog box displays only the designated
records. To display all the records again, click (All).
Note If you have installed address validation software, you can click
Validate in the Mail Merge Recipients dialog box to validate your
recipients' addresses.
To return to the Mail Merge task pane, click OK. Word will use the
recipients you designated for the merge.
To go to the next step in the mail merge, click Next: Write your letter.
Note The name of this step changes somewhat to reflect what type of
document you are working on.
Add items, such as address blocks and greeting lines, to your
document. If you don't see the item you want to add, click More items.
The final two steps let you preview and then complete your mail merge.
Note If you think you might do a similar merge in the future, it's a
good idea to save the main document. Saving the main document also
saves the connection between it and the data source. The next time you
open the main document, you will see information from the first data
source record already merged in. You can quickly complete the merge or
connect to a different source.
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