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Getting started with Microsoft Office Excel: Week 4 - Excel & Mail Merge

Learn to work with basic spreadsheets, storing both text and numerical data.

Exercise 1

Create a contact list of your friends and family

  1. Open a new blank Excel spreadsheet*, and save it to the Desktop as file My Contacts

* To save time, you can download a sample spreadsheet from the link below.

  1. Create column headers for Last Name, First Name, Street Address, City, State, Zip, Email, Phone
  2. Fill in as many rows as you wish, at least 4 or 5, with real or imaginary values
  3. Rename the Worksheet tab “Friends” (NOTE: Important for Exercise 2 step 4 below!)
  4. Save the file again when finished to update the file on disk

Challenge: Email the document to yourself

Exercise 2

Mail Merge

  1. Download the document from the link below called “Week 4 Letter for Mail Merge”
  2. Save As:

Location: Desktop

Filename:<your first name> Letter for Mail Merge

  1. Prepare the letter to be the document into which you insert your contact information (Mailings/Start Mail Merge/ Letters)
    • Go to Mailings tab, select “Start Mail Merge”
    • Select “Letters” (NOTE: No visible change except “Select Recipients” button becomes active)
  2. Prepare the Word document so the Excel contact list provides the people’s information that inserts into the letter (Mailings/Start Mail Merge/Select Recipients/Using Existing List)
    • Go to Mailings tab, select “Select Recipients”
    • Select “Use Existing list”
    • Use browse window to find your contact list file from Exercise 1
    • Select the “Friends” row (NOTE: No visible change except several other buttons become active)
  3. Insert the Merge fields into the word document
    • Insert your cursor into your letter where you want to plug in the fields.  Select each field in the place you want the data to insert (Mailings/Write & Insert Fields/Insert Merge Fields)
  4. Other changes to make to the letter:
    • Change the Date to today’s date (see top of this page)
    • Change the Name at the bottom to your name
    • [Optional] Change the destination e-mail address to your own
  5. Preview the Results (Mailings/Preview Results/Preview Results)
    • If any changes or corrections are needed, make them, and repeat this step
  6. Finish the merge (Mailings/Finish)
    • Select “Edit Individual documents”
    • Indicate you want to merge all records
    • Save the merged docs as “Final merge”

Challenge: Print just the first 4 letters, all on a single sheet of paper