Creating a Mail Merge Data File

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated November 4, 2017)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

If you plan on printing documents that merge information from a data file, such as form letters, you will need to create the data file in such a way that Word knows how to process it. This data can be in a database program, in the Excel spreadsheet program, or directly in Word. If you are creating a simple, one-time mail merge document, chances are good that you will be using data that you put in a Word document.

Basically, the Word data file must have a header record and as many data records as you desire. The header record indicates the field names to be assigned to the fields in each record. The names in this header record correspond to the field names used in your master document. Each field in each data record of the file must correspond to one of the header fields. For instance, consider the following excerpt from a data file.

title	first	middle	last
John	Q.	Public
Jean	R.	Smith
Wilma		Davis
Walter	T.	Avery

The first record indicates the field names; it is the header record. The other four records are the data records. Notice, also, that the third data record does not list any data corresponding to the data field named middle. As you create these data files, you can place the information in a Word table so the data is easier to visualize and work with. Each record will occupy a row of the table, and each field will occupy a cell in the row.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (1369) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

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What is 6 + 4?

2017-11-04 12:05:53

Sheldon Hoffman

In the mail merge section using a Word document the data example columns under the heading line are not lined up with their respective headings.

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