Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Word 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Word, click here: Beginning a Mail Merge.
Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated June 22, 2024)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003
Word includes a very powerful mail merge feature. In order to take advantage of this feature, you need to create a main document. This document is the "template" or "boilerplate" for your finished document. It includes everything Word needs to create the finished document, including placeholders for the data that Word extracts from a data file.
A mail merge document is not complete, however, until you have also specified a data file that you want to associate with the main document. Exactly how you do this depends on the version of Word you are using.
To create your main mail merge document and attach a data source to it when using Word 2002 or Word 2003, follow these steps:
If you are using an older version of Word (Word 97 or Word 2000) then the steps are quite a bit different:
At this point, you are ready to modify or type your main document. You will include merge fields in the document that indicate where you want the data from your data file to appear.
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (84) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Word (Word 2007 and later) here: Beginning a Mail Merge.
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