How to mail merge from Excel to Word?

Introduction

In this article, we will learn about how to mail merge from excel to word. In your organizational workflows, you may need to send emails, letters, or newsletters of similar content, regularly to multiple people. Generally, these documents have the same layouts and just changing the recipients' names does the job. But it becomes time-consuming if you manually generate these documents for all the recipients. So, you might like to copy the contents from the documents and change the name, address, contact info, etc. But this process is time taking too. Thus, an automated procedure to easily prepare similar documents comes in handy. The mail merge feature gives you relief from the above problems. 

What is Mail Merge?

The mail merge is an automated process to create personalized emails, and letters and send them quickly to your recipients. It collects the primary data from a spreadsheet like Excel or Google Sheets to create a template file. You don’t need to compose each template in Gmail or other email applications. This technique handles the creation and sending of customized emails for multiple users. When the mail merge starts working, the Excel and Word file connect. Then the Word file extracts the data from Excel and adds them in the place of inserted variables.

What are the components of mail merge?

• Data file

The data file contains the data of your recipients. It includes their name, surname, email address, contact number, etc. The mail merge automatically fetches those details from that file and puts them within the template file. The data file could be an Excel sheet or Google Sheets. It helps to create a personalized document for your recipients.

• Template file

The template file is the final document that holds the message for sending to the recipients. It could be an email or a letter form. You should specify where to place the personalized data within this document.

Things to know before starting your mail merge

1. All the personalized data from your template file should be in the Excel file. It means you have to create the column's name in the Excel sheet, which matches the variables (name, address, etc) of the Word document. 
2. You should put these in the first spreadsheet of your Excel app.
3. If you need to modify any data in the data file, you must do it before starting the processing for mail merge.
4. If any data in your spreadsheet begins or ends with zero, you should be extra careful. Format them appropriately, as it helps MS Word to read the data correctly.

Advantages of mail merge

• You can produce hundreds of personalized letters simultaneously within a few times.
• With this technique, we can reuse the same data file and eliminate the risk of errors.
• Also, you can reuse the template document for future purposes.

Steps to perform a mail merge from Excel to Word

1. Open the MS Word application from your PC.
2. Click the Mailings tab.
3. Click Select Recipients > Use Existing List from the Start Mail Merge group. 
4. Select the Excel file you have prepared. Then the Select Table pop-up will open. Click Ok on it. Now your documents connect your data list.

5. Next, click Start Mail Merge > E-mail Messages under the Start Mail Merge group and start typing your message.

6. Now add the required field from the Insert Merge Field option. You will find this option in the Write & Insert Field group.

7. A pop-down menu will appear containing all the headings. Choose the First name and create a space using the spacebar from the keyboard. Again give space and choose the Last Name. Then press the Enter button to start a new line.8. After that, check and preview your message before starting the actual merging process. So, click the Preview Results button under the Preview Results group.

9. Next, click Finish & Merge > Edit Individual Documents from the Finish group. 10. Select All in the Merge to New Document panel. It will create separate email messages for each person in the Excel Sheet.

11. Finally, click OK and save it with a name like XYZ.docx.

Automate Google Workspace with Foresight 

Foresight helps to automate your regular business workflows in Google Workspace. It is a codeless automation to streamline your business operations and simplify complex tasks. So, it allows the Administrators and the users to design complex and large use cases easily without spending too much time on them. Thus it removes the need for repetitive tasks and helps Admins to work efficiently. Moreover, it can handle the tasks the native Google Cloud Services can't perform.

You can try out the use cases of Foresight, such as How to Merge Two Gmail Account, How To Mail Merge In Google Docs?. You will learn how to mail merge in Gmail with Foresight from this use case. So, prepare a CSV list of users’ data as the data file. Then you have to upload it using the Data Uploaded trigger in Foresight. To create the mail merge, you have to select the Email action. After that, you have to create a subject, email message, and variables for your email template. In this way, you can create the mail merge with Foresight. You can learn – Automated Welcome Email To Google Workspace New Users, Learn How To Create Multiple Folders At Once etc.

Conclusion

Now you know how to create a mail merge from Excel to Word. Learn the steps and perform them carefully. Also, Foresight has a use case to perform mail merge action. Learn about it from the Foresight blog and know about the platform. It’s a tool that improves productivity and gifts you more time from unnecessary workloads. Try out the 14-day free trial with Foresight. Also, explore the corresponding topics – Send personalized emails with mail merge, etc.