Performing a Mail Merge from Outlook

As the previous sections illustrated, it’s easy to perform a mail merge from Word 2007 and pull contact information from Outlook 2007. You can also filter the contacts to include only those that suit your needs.

You can also perform a mail merge from Outlook 2007. Starting from Outlook 2007 gives you a few advantages:

  • More control over contacts to be included. You can merge all the contacts in the current view of the Contacts folder or merge only those contacts you have selected in the folder.

  • Control over which fields to include. You can include all contact fields or only those fields that are visible in the current folder view.

  • Capability to save the contacts for later use. Outlook 2007 gives you the option of saving the contacts to a Word 2007 document to use for future reference or for future mail merges from Word 2007.

To begin a mail merge from Outlook 2007, select Contacts in the Navigation Pane, click Tools, and then click Mail Merge to open the Mail Merge Contacts dialog box. As Figure 37-7 illustrates, Outlook 2007 offers two options to control which contacts are included in the merge:

Use the Mail Merge Contacts dialog box to choose which contacts and fields to include in the merge.

Figure 37-7. Use the Mail Merge Contacts dialog box to choose which contacts and fields to include in the merge.

  • All Contacts In Current View. Use this option to include all the contacts in the view, understanding that all the contacts in the view does not necessarily equate to all contacts. If you create a filtered view of the folder that excludes some of the contacts, those contacts will be excluded from the merge as well.

  • Only Selected Contacts. Choose this option to include only those contacts that you selected in the Contacts folder prior to choosing Tools, Mail Merge. To selectively include contacts, in the Contacts folder hold down the Ctrl key while clicking to select individual contacts, or press Shift+Click to select a range of contacts.

In addition to specifying which contacts are included, you can control which fields are included, excluding those you don’t need. The following two options determine which fields are included:

  • All Contact Fields. Choose this option to include all the contact fields.

  • Contact Fields In Current View. Choose this option to include only the fields displayed in the current view. You can customize the view prior to choosing Tools, Mail Merge to filter in only specific fields.

Note

Creating custom views to filter items in a folder is covered in detail in "Creating and Using Custom Views" in Chapter 27.

You can merge the contacts to a new document if you want or choose an existing document to use a Word 2007 document you have already created.

The merged contact information can be saved for later or repeated by checking Permanent File under Data Contact File and specifying a file name.

You can choose from a variety of document types for your merged information: form letters, mailing labels, envelopes, and catalogs. The output of the mail merge can be saved as a Word 2007 document, sent directly to a printer, or sent as e-mail to the contacts you have selected for the merge.

After you select your options in the Mail Merge Contacts dialog box and click OK, Outlook 2007 opens Word 2007, prepopulating the mail merge contact list and starting the document type you have specified. The rest of the process depends on the type of document you have selected.

  • Form letters or catalogs. To complete the mail merge for a form letter or catalog, choose the Mailings tab, click Start Mail Merge, and select the Step By Step Mail Merge Wizard. The wizard opens at step 3, in which you choose the contacts to include in the letter. Because you have already generated a contact list, the Use An Existing List option is already selected for you. You can then click Edit Recipient List to verify or fine-tune the list, or you can click Next: Write Your Letter to move to the next step.

  • Mailing labels or envelopes. Select options in the Mail Merge Helper dialog box to complete the mail merge and create mailing labels or envelopes. You can change the type of document you are creating or click Setup to choose a specific type of mailing label or envelope size. The data source is already selected, but you can change or edit the data source.

Note

See the section "Using Contacts for a Mail Merge in Word" earlier in this chapter for detailed instructions on using the Mail Merge Wizard in Word 2007.

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