Mail/Data Merge

Could someone PM me or post here if you know anything about Microsoft Office and how to Mail/Data Merge. I do the thank you letters for HART adoption center for cats and I'm looking for a way to make my life easier with the importing and printing of info.

I've managed to do it a couple of times but they don't make it easy. I have the notes I wrote for myself at work. I have Windows 2000 pro and Office XP. Are you in a rush? If you can wait til Monday I can get it to you then. There are a couple of tricks and it doesn't work the way it is supposed to.

I can wait till monday.......thank so much!

Are you also using office XP? I'd hate to make you wait for my directions and then have them not work...

I'm on a mac office.........

Well I'll still give it my best shot! Are you using an address book in Outlook to store the addresses?

OK here goes nothing.
1) Start Outlook.
2) Select the folder that has the names and addresses that you want to use.
3) Under "Tools" select "Mail Merge"
4) You get a popup that asks which contacts to use and which "fields" to use. I usually use "all" for both.
5) The same popup asks if you want to create a new document or use an exsting one. Select "new" if you haven't already written the body of the letter, otherwise select that. You also have to choose what type of document. It sounded like you wanted a "Form letter" so pick that. (You can also make labels or envelopes but let's stick with form letters for now).
6) Hit "OK" and Word will open with a blank page if you picked "new" or with the body text if you picked something you had already written.
7) In Word under "Tools" choose "letters and mailings" and click "mail merge wizard."
8) You should get a little mail merge bar on the right side that takes you through the steps. Go to step 3, "write your letter."
9) Probably you want the "address block" so click that. Also the "greeting line"
10 ) If you go to "preview your letter" you'll get what the letter looks like that goes to the first person in your contact folder that you picked.
11) If everything looks ok, click "complete the merge"
12) At that point you can "print" but I always do "edit individual letters" to check them. You get a popup that says "merge records" and this is where the fun starts. However many contacts you had in your folder, that is how many pages your Word document will be.

You may want to do a trial run with only three or four contacts to see if it works right before going ahead and doing a whole bunch.

Good luck and I hope this helps.

This is the one we have saved at work
http://personal-computer-tutor.com/mailmerge.htm

This one has links to Mac stuff so may be more helpful
http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/techno...ce/mail_merge/