45 min read

Mail Merge

Personalised open-day letters from Excel — data source, fields, preview, fix broken merges.

The merge pipeline

1 Write letter in Word with static school text 2 Connect data — Excel, Outlook contacts, or Word table 3 Insert merge fields — «FirstName», «AppointmentTime» 4 Filter/sort — only Year 7; sort by time 5 Preview — scroll records, catch mapping errors 6 Finish — print, email, or individual files Broken merge almost always means wrong field name or header row not recognised .

Diagnose: <<First_Name>> visible on letters

Symptom: Field codes print literally. Causes: - Field inserted wrong (manual typing «» instead of Insert Merge Field) - Column renamed in Excel after merge setup - CSV opened with wrong delimiter Fix: Mailings \to Edit Recipient List \to verify columns \to re-insert fields from list \to Preview again.

Merge open-day appointment letters

Goal

$Mail merge letters from Excel parent list with preview.$

$James Okonkwo adds this to NorthgateHandbook.docx as part of one polished student handbook, policy pack, and open-day collateral before families arrive.$

Start merge

Where

Mailings

Do this

Mailings \to Start Mail Merge \to Letters .

You should see

$Mailings tab active.$

Verification

Check your work

You are correct if all of these are true:

$Preview shows real parent names — not <<Field>> literals.$
$At least appointment time field merged if in data source.$
$Letter body static text unchanged; only merge fields personalise.$

Practice

Preview shows <<First_Name>> on every letter. First check?

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