Mail merge from Excel to Word can seem daunting at first. If you’re someone who needs to send letters to multiple people but doesn’t want to waste hours copying and pasting each person’s information, this tutorial is for you. Whether you’re sending letters to 10 people or 100, the process for automating it is the same.

Learning how to do mail merge from Excel to Word will save you hours of work—especially if you’re dealing with hundreds of recipients. In this post, I’ll break down the process for you.

Watch the video here to follow along:

Let’s walk through the steps needed to perform a mail merge, pulling the recipient data from an Excel spreadsheet into a Word document.

Preparing Your Excel Data

Before we start merging, we need to make sure your Excel spreadsheet is set up correctly. Your Excel file should include columns for each piece of data you plan to insert into the letter. A typical setup might include:

  • First Name
  • Last Name
  • Company Name
  • Address (potentially split into separate columns like street, city, state, and zip)

Start by reviewing your spreadsheet for any errors or unwanted spaces in the cells. For example, make sure someone like “James” hasn’t accidentally been entered as “J ames,” which could mess up the final merge. Every column needs a clear header, like “First Name” or “Email Address,” and each line should correspond to a single recipient.

Once everything looks good:

  1. Save your file.
  2. Close the Excel sheet.

Starting the Mail Merge in Word

Now let’s head over to Microsoft Word.

  1. Open your Word document.
  2. Go to the Mailings tab at the top of your screen.
  3. Click Start Mail Merge and then choose Letters.

Before doing anything else, you’ll notice options like Address Block and Greeting Line are grayed out. Don’t worry—this will change once we add our recipient list.

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Connecting Your Excel File to Word

Now we’ll connect our spreadsheet to Word:

  1. Click Select Recipients.
  2. Choose Use an Existing List.
  3. Navigate to your saved Excel file and select it.

If your Excel workbook contains more than one sheet, you’ll be asked to pick the one with your data. Also, make sure the checkbox that says “First row of data contains column headers” is checked.

Once connected, those grayed-out options like Address Block and Greeting Line are now enabled.

You’ll notice a new option has appeared—Edit Recipient List. This is useful if you want to manually control which recipients the letters will go to. For example, uncheck any rows you don’t need, filter by state, or even remove duplicates.

Inserting Fields into Your Letter

Now it’s time to place the data from your Excel document into your letter. Let’s assume your letter starts with: “Dear [First Name] [Last Name].”

  1. Highlight the text “Dear Recipient.”
  2. Click Greeting Line under the Mailings tab.
  3. Choose how you want the greeting to appear, like “Dear First Name Last Name,” and use commas or other punctuation as needed.

You can also decide how you want to handle cases where there might be missing data, like defaulting to “Dear Sir or Madam” if no name is available.

There’s also an Address Block option to automatically set your entire address fields, including first and last name, company, and postal address. Just click Address Block, and a preview will show you what it will look like for each recipient.

Every single field from your Excel spreadsheet is also available in Insert Merge Field. Say you want to add the email address or phone number somewhere in the letter—just click Insert Merge Field and select the column from the list.

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Previewing and Finalizing the Mail Merge

Once you’ve placed all your fields, it’s time to see how the final letters will look.

  1. Click Preview Results to replace your merge fields with real data from your spreadsheet.
  2. Move through the recipient list by clicking the left and right arrows to preview each record.

Don’t forget that you can still check for errors before fully committing to the merge. Click Check for Errors to see if anything unusual or problematic was found.

Executing the Mail Merge

Now for the final step!

Click Finish and Merge. You have a few options:

  • Edit Individual Documents: This will show you all your merged letters in one big Word document.
  • Send Email Messages: If you’re sending letters via email, select this and fill out the subject line. Word will then send your personalized letters through Outlook.
  • Print Documents: If you want physical copies, choose this option. Select the range for which you’d like to print (like all records, or a subset), and print directly from Word.

Printing Envelopes with Mail Merge

After you’ve created your letters, you may want envelopes to go with them.

  1. From a blank Word document, navigate to the Mailings tab.
  2. Go to Start Mail Merge and select Envelopes.
  3. Choose your envelope options, like size and fonts.
  4. Connect your Excel list exactly as we did for the letters.
  5. Insert the Address Block just as before and put in your return address.

Preview how it will look and set up your printer preferences. I recommend testing with one envelope before printing a whole batch.

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Wrapping Up

That’s it! You’ve now successfully created letters and matching envelopes using mail merge from Excel to Word. The more you practice, the more comfortable this process will become, and soon you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it.

Remember, if you’re dealing with more substantial lists, like hundreds of people, mail merge is going to be your biggest time-saver.

If this post helped you, be sure to leave a comment below!

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