Creating a mail merge manually

Follow these steps to learn how to create a mail merge manually:

1. Open a new blank document in Word 2019.
2. Click on the Mailings tab on the ribbon.
3. We will be creating labels in this example. Choose the Start Mail Merge icon and select Labels....
4. The dialog box will offer many options that you can use to customize labels. You can choose different Label vendors, such as Avery or Microsoft, as well as the most popular online vendors. You are also able to customize any selected label by visiting the Details... icon at the bottom of the dialog box.
5. Select the Label type and customize it, if necessary.
6. Click on the OK button when complete.
7. The label guidelines will appear on the new document.
8. The next step is to format the first label, thus creating the label template.
9. Format the first label only by adding any logos, text, and shapes that need to appear on every label. You can customize this as you wish but for this example, we are going to add a company logo.
10. Click into the first label and choose Insert from the ribbon.

11. Click on Pictures, select SafestSolutionsLogo.png, and click on Insert:

12. Resize the picture so that it fits into the first label, leaving enough space for the customer details.
13. Now, we are ready to insert our recipients (customer details).
14. Click on the Mailings tab once again and choose Select Recipients from the Start Mail Merge group.
15. Since we already have a recipient address list typed up in Excel 2019, we will use the customer information for our labels. You will notice, however, that there are three options:

• Type a New List...: This will open a datasheet that constructs an entirely new set of data for the labels.
• Use an Existing List...: This will allow you to open an already constructed data source from a location on your computer.
• Choose from Outlook Contacts...: This will allow you access to your Outlook 2019 contacts so that you can use them as the mail merge recipient list.

16. Browse to find the data source on your computer (please use the Excel file called CustomerData.xlsx if you are following this example).
17. Open the file. The Select Table dialog box will open. You will need to select the worksheet that contains your data – there could be many tables (sheets) within an Excel workbook.

18. Select the Customers table and click the OK button to continue.
19. Notice the change in the label document. The ribbon has more options available and the <<Next Record>> field appears on each label. The recipient list is now a part of the document and the fields can be inserted into the document.
20. Position the cursor where you would like the first merge field (on the first label) to appear.
21. From the Write & Insert Fields group, select Insert Merge Field. The list of field names from the data source will appear:

22. Click on the Name field name to insert the merged field onto the first label, press the spacebar on the keyboard, and then return to the Insert Merge Field drop-down list and select Surname.
23. Press Enter to move to the next line.
24. Continue adding the following fields to the label, with each on a new line: Company, Address, Country1.
25. Add a comma after Country1 and then add the merge field called Country2. 

26. The first label looks great, but we will need to update this information for every label so that the customer data will update with each label when we complete the merge:

27. Click on the Update Labels icon on the Write & Insert Fields group.
28. The labels are updated with the merge fields. Don't worry if the rest of the labels look a bit out of line compared to the first label; this is due to the <<Next Record>> field being inserted and will correct itself when we merge the data.
29. Note: Before you print or merge the information, it is a good idea to preview the results first so that any mistakes can be corrected before labels are wasted during printing.
30. Click on the Preview Results icon on the Mailings tab.
31. The labels will be updated and the fields on all labels will finally be lined up!
32. Before the merge is completed, you can set the Check for Errors option. By default, the middle option is set in this dialog box and will stop at each point in the merge to prompt you if an error is occurring (an example of an error would be that a merge field is not recognized).
33. If you are not comfortable just moving on, choose Simulate the merge and report errors in a new document first so that you can fix whatever is causing a problem before you continue with the actual merge. If you click on the OK button to continue at this point, the check will happen and your results will be sent to a new Word document. We will skip this step for this example.

34. Click on the Finish & Merge icon from the Finish group to complete the last step.
35. There are three options to choose: Edit Individual Documents... to merge the data to a new document, Print Documents... to send the completed merge directly to the printer without making any changes, and Send Email Messages... to be able to use the email merge field addresses to send emails.

36. For this example, we will choose Edit Individual Documents....
37. A new document will open containing the result of the merge.
38. Now, we can choose to print using the File | Print option on the Backstage view.
39. Remember to save the original merge document containing the data source as this is an important document. The resulting document can be closed once it's been printed.