The urge to merge.(using Microsoft Word)

Byline: Tim Nott

The urge to merge

Get to grips with one of Word's most feared features

One of the phrases that can strike terror into the hearts of mere mortals is 'mail merge', along with the closely related 'database'. The idea is that you send out a standard letter, personalised with individual names, addresses and possibly other items.

The Word mail-merge wizard does make it fairly simple, but it still exudes an air of mystery. Word offers you a bewildering array of list formats to import from, including Access Databases, Outlook Address books, Excel spreadsheets or Word tables. You can also create a new list on the fly -- this will be in Access (.mdb) format. The disadvantage of this is that it is US-based in the address format. The other great fear with mail merging is that you can not only get something wrong, but you can get it wrong over and over again in every letter.

Keep it simple

This month we're going to demystify mail merge, just using Word. First, before you go near the Mail Merge command, create your addresses using a Word table. Across the top of the table list the fields you want available for each entry -- such as Title, First Name, Surname, Address 1, Address 2, Town, County and Postcode. You don't have to stick with these names, and you can have more or fewer fields and they can be in any order, though it makes life easier to arrange them in the order they will appear in the address. Next, enter the data as per our sample. The Tab key will take you from field to field and, when you reach the end of a row, a further Tab will start a new row. Take care not to include spaces at the start or end of a field as this may mess up the formatting of the letters, but don't worry if a field wraps more than one line in a cell -- this won't happen in the merged letters.