To do a mail merge in Microsoft Word you need two files: the main document—in this case, the letter inviting guests to our joint Open House—and a data document, which is the list of people you’re going to invite, including their names and addresses (see bottom of page if you want to download my examples).
First let’s prepare the data document. The information on each person on your list is called a RECORD. Each piece of information about a person is called a FIELD. For 40 names you’ll have forty records of eight or ten fields each.
Each field is separated from the next by a TAB. Each record is a separate paragraph, separated from the next by hitting the ‘Enter’ key.
Open a blank document in Word. The first paragraph on the page is called the HEADER. It includes the NAME of each field that’s to go into the letter.
Here’s the way I do it:
Salutation → First Name → Last Name → Company → Address1 → Address2 → City → State → Zip → Profession ¶
Note the little arrows between each name. Those characters represent tabs, which you use to separate each field. The ‘backwards P” or ¶ is the end of the paragraph mark, created when you hit the ‘Enter’ key.
To make the tabs and paragraphs easier to see, open the Tools, Options menu in Word (Figure 1).
Figure 1
Select the Tab called ‘View.’ In the center of the dialog box is a section called ‘Formatting marks,’ with check boxes next to items. Check the boxes next to ‘ Tab characters’ and Paragraph marks.’ Click ‘OK.”
Right below the header, enter your data for each invitee like so:
Mr. Jones →John →Jones →Acme Realtors→3900 Elm St. →Suite 400 →Burbank →CA →91505 →a Realtor ¶
Repeat the process for each invitee. Keeping the tabs and end of paragraph marks visible makes it easier to make sure you haven’t left any out.
What about missing data? Not every invitee will have both fields, Address1 and Address2 (street and suite). For the mail merge to work correctly, you need a blank place holder for the missing information. To create a place holder, hit the Tab key twice after the first address. It will look like this:
Becky →Rebecca →Smith →Smith’s Flower Shop →400 Rose Ave. → →N. Hollywood →CA →91604 →a Florist ¶
When you’ve entered all 40 records, save your file to the My Documents folder (save it several times during entry). Call it “BNI Invite Data.doc” or whatever you’ll recognize.
The mail merge letter has a blank place to add the PROFESSION of the person you're writing to. The letter you got from BNI has the article "a" before it. If you use the letter on the CD, you MUST delete the "a" and add the article ("a" or "an") to your data (see example above), so that the letter you send doesn't say (for example), "We are looking for a investment specialist..."
Use the invitation letter here on the website (link to download below). If you use the one on the CD-ROM, you'll have to add all the fields. Copy it to your computer’s My Documents folder and open it in Word. Now click on Tools, Letters & Mailings, Mail Merge Wizard on the Word menu. A window opens on the right side of your screen (Figure 2):
Figure 2 |
Figure 3 |
Figure 4 |
Select ‘Letters’ from the Document type and click on ‘Next’ at the bottom. Step 2 appears on the right: |
Select ‘Use the Current Document and click on ‘Next’ again. Step 3 appears: |
Choose ‘Browse’ and navigate (see Fig. 5 below) your way to the My Documents folder and the BNI Invite Data.doc. |
Figure 5
Click on ‘Open.’ Another dialog box opens (Figure 6):
Figure 6
Your field delimiter is Tab and your Record delimiter is Enter, so choose those. Click ‘OK.’ If any of your records are missing data or tabs, an error message will pop up (Figure 7):
Figure 7
Make a note of which records had errors, click OK until the error messages disappear, then go back and edit your data file. This may take several trips back and forth between your data file and the main document file, so take your time. From the window in Figure 7, above, you can also edit your data by selecting a problem record and clicking on ‘Edit.’ Once the data are fixed, your dialog box will look like this (Figure 8):
Figure 8
Click Ok. Click on ‘Next’ in the Mail Merge Wizard box on the right to go to the window in Figure 9:
Figure 9 |
Choose ‘More items’ to add recipient information to your letter. |
Below are excerpts from the letter on the CD, showing ONLY the parts you need to change.
(PUT YOUR LETTERHEAD HERE!)
Today’s Date
(NAME)
(COMPANY)
(STREET ADDRESS)
(CITY, STATE ZIP)
Dear (NAME):
Delete ‘(PUT YOUR LETTERHEAD HERE).’ Type in Today’s Date. Highlight (NAME), including the parenthesis. Then click ‘More items’ in the box above. A dialog box appears (Figure 10):
Figure 10
Select FirstName from the box above and click on ‘Insert.’ (NAME) will disappear, replaced by the FirstName Field, which looks like this:
«FirstName»
Click ‘Close’ to close the box. Make sure your mouse cursor is at the end of the FirstName field on your letter, then hit the space bar, click on ‘More items’ again and choose ‘LastName’ from the box in Figure 10. the line of your letter now looks like this:
«FirstName» «LastName»
Highlight (COMPANY), choose ‘More items’ again and pick ‘Business.’ Click on ‘Insert’ then close the box. Now you have two lines like so:
«FirstName» «LastName»
«Business»
Repeat the process for every line in the address, adding «Address2» after a space next to «Address1». It should look like this when you’re done:
«FirstName» «LastName»
«Business»
«Address1» «Address2»
«City», «State» «Zip»
Don’t forget the comma and space after «City», and the space between «State» and «Zip».Then highlight ‘(NAME)’ in the greeting part and replace it with the ‘Salutation’ field.
In the body of the letter, replace the TWO instances of ‘(PROFESSION)’ with the «Profession» field as above. Replace the (***) ***-**** with your phone number, YOUR NAME WITH YOUR NAME and title.
Note: I plan to add the word “dollars” to the line “…generated more than 2.8 Billion…”
When you’re done, you letter should look like this—except with your name instead of mine at the bottom (Figure 11):
Figure 11
Now click on ‘Next: preview your letters’ in the Mail Merge Wizard dialog box on the right. You will get Figure 12.
Figure 12
You should have a separate letter for each name in your data file. Scroll down through the letters to make sure every one looks OK. Note that you can exclude recipients here as well.
Step 6, ‘Next: Complete the merge’ (not shown) in the wizard lets you print or edit individual letters. But if the letters are OK, you can print from the Step 5 screen (‘File, Print’) and close the wizard window.
You’re all done! You can also print envelopes from the Mail Merge Wizard, but BNI thinks a handwritten envelope is more personal.
To make it easier on yourself, here are links to my versions of the data and main documents. Be sure to replace the fake names with real invitee names in the data doc, and follow the data format in the header exactly.
