How many times have we had to manually fill in letters, labels or invitations with different information on each of them: basically we have to replicate the letter or label template on the whole sheet (fixed data) and fill in each with the different data to be entered (flexible data). This operation can be very tedious and repetitive, but fortunately the programs used for writing and managing data give us a great hand with the mail merge, which allows us to replicate flexible data within models created with fixed data, so as to generate in one fell swoop all the tickets, letters or labels with all the necessary data. We see in this guide how to do mail merge on Word, Excel and LibreOffice, so you can choose from time to time the best program to do this on our computer.
READ ALSO: Mail merge in Gmail to send personalized emails to multiple contacts
How to do mail merge
If we need to create numerous prints with fixed data and flexible data, just read the following chapters to be able to achieve the goal without having to manually write all the data, considerably speeding up the printing of letters, tickets, labels etc.How to do mail merge with Word and Excel
To create a mail merge we start writing the fixed part of our document on Word: we can get help in the realization of the models offered by the Office program, so as to have a base from which to start.
Once the "fixed" part has been completed, we must indicate the merge prints on the document, ie the parts to be filled in with flexible data. Click at the top on the Letters menu, then click on Start Mail Merge -> Mail Merge Wizard .
A sidebar will open to the right of the document where we will be guided in the creation of the mail merge: we select the type of print to be made ( Letters, E-mails, Envelopes, Labels or List ), we press down on Next, we select Use the document current or Change the layout of the document (the program will generate the fields to be filled in by itself), press again on Next and, in the next section, select Create a new list to generate flexible data.
For convenience we can also use Excel, much more suitable for generating data for mail merge; leaving the Word document suspended for a moment, we open Excel and begin to insert the data to be used for the mail merge in the various rows and columns.
For the purpose we can also create a simple table, so as to make everything as tidy as possible and facilitate the task once back in Word.
Once the Excel document with flexible data has been created and the spreadsheet saved, let's go back to the Word document and, in the sidebar, let's go to the data selection section so that we can press the Browse button.
A window will open, where we simply have to select the Excel document created previously; after that the program will ask us if we want to use the present table or if we want to manually select the data to be used.
In this way we will create the recipients of the mail merge, which will appear in the dedicated window.
All we have to do is check the data entry and finally click OK .
To conclude we will have to click on Next in the bar on the right side, choose the arrangement of the labels generated by the data (be careful to make them coincide with the part we want to be filled by the flexible data!), Press again on Next, check the envelopes one by one, the letters or labels generated by Word and finally print on the last screen with the Print key (after having pressed for the last time on Next ).
If we are not satisfied with the result, we can also edit the individual labels, letters or envelopes created using the Edit individual labels button, present in the last screen of the wizard.
How to do mail merge on LibreOffice
If we do not have the possibility to use Microsoft Office on our computer, we can always install the free LibreOffice suite, with which we can perform the mail merge (called here serial printing).We open the LibreOffice Calc program and insert all the flexible data to be used in the subsequent series printing, taking care to order them in a table.
Save the spreadsheet and open the LibreOffice Writer program, start writing or creating the fixed model to be used for the mail merge, then open the Tools menu and click on the item Print in series .
From this screen we can choose whether to start from the already open document or to upload another document or a model downloaded from the Internet ; once you have made your choice, press down on Next, select whether to create a letter or an e-mail message and press again on Next to find yourself in the most important screen, where you can enter the block of addresses.
Now click on Select address list and, in the new window, click on Add to be able to add the spreadsheet created previously with Calc (specifically the pivot table created to sort the data).
Once the flexible data is loaded, press on Other to choose the data format, then select Combine fields to be able to choose which data to use within the chosen format.
Now we click on OK, we check if all the generated documents have the data we loaded then we press again on Next, we choose the most appropriate form of greeting, we press again on Next and we adjust the layout of the data within the document, so that we can preview the final result.
We will return to the Writer document, this time divided into as many documents as there are prints to make (we will see a new toolbar appear at the top). To start the printing process, simply press the Print compound documents icon.
Conclusions
The mail merge can be very useful in the office when we have to send a single document to several people and in fact we have to change only the welcome message, the header and the final greetings on each one. It can also be very useful in the home for making wedding invitations, special invitations or personalized tickets for each guest: following the steps we have illustrated, we will be able to merge using both Word and Excel (available as paid programs) and LibreOffice (available for free).We don't know how to make labels on Word "> How to make labels with Word.
If instead we have to make an invoice using Excel, we invite you to read our article How to Create an invoice with Excel, from scratch, simple and personalized .
As a final reading, we advise you to take a look at How to print business cards with Word or LibreOffice, really useful if we need numerous business cards with fixed data.
