Page 181 - DCAP101_BASIC_COMPUTER_SKILLS

Basic Computer Skills

Notes copies as needed. Mail merge enables you to personalize form letters for mass mailing,
product announcements, customer letters, reports, and invitations. With mail-merge, it is
also possible to combine a list of names and addresses to create invoices and mailing labels.
So, instead of typing many individual letters and changing the variable information in each
letter, you can tell Word to merge the letter and the variable information, which saves you
effort required to type and time. So, if you have a dozen identical letters to write, then you
can use mail-merge feature of Word to get the desired results in no time. In this section, you
will learn how to use the mail-merge feature to create form letters, envelopes, and mailing
labels.
9.4.1 Merging Letter and Address Files

Mail Merge helps in generating multiple copies of a base document (the content of a letter)
incorporating some variable information (the name and address of a person) such that each
copy appears to the recipient as an original document. Mail Merge saves the user from the
effort of typing in each copy separately. The process is called “merging”, and does the following
operations:

• Print personalized letters addressed to any number of recipients.
• Print envelopes for the letters.
• Print mailing labels.

• Print lists and catalogs.
The Mail Merge process involves:

• Creating a main document that contains text with some place markers embedded within
the text.
• Creating a data source document that lists sets of text that will replace the place markers
in the main document.
• Finally, when Word merges the two files, the result is a set of documents, one document
for each set of text in the data source document.
The best known use for merging is creating form letters. A typical main document for a form
letter consists of the text of the letter with markers indicating positions for an addressee’s
name/ street, address, city, state, and pin code. The data source document contains a list of the
actual addressee’s names and addresses. Word merges the two documents together to print
personalized letters.
9.4.2 What is Merging

The two main documents used by Word in the mail merge process are:
• a main document
• a data source document.

The Main Document
The main document for a form letter contains the text and perhaps graphics, that should be in
every letter. The words enclosed in chevrons (<< and >>) in the main document are the field
codes that identify data to be inserted from the data source document. Other text in the main
document (text not enclosed in chevrons) will appear in every letter.

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