You may be using Microsoft Excel to organize a distribution list in an orderly fashion. however, when you’re ready to print mailing labels, you’ll need to use mail merge to create them in word from your excel list. here’s how.
first step: prepare your mailing list
If you have already created a mailing list in excel, you can safely skip this test. If you haven’t created the list yet, even though excel doesn’t have the mailing label feature, we strongly recommend that you use excel, as it’s better at organizing and maintaining data than using a table of words.
The first thing you need to do is create a column header corresponding to the data that goes in each column. put those headers in the first row of each column.
The headers you include will depend on the information you plan to use on your mailing labels. Titles are always nice, but it’s important that you know what title a person is identified by before you create your tags. Also, if your list is for businesses and not individuals, you can omit the “first name” and “last name” header and just use “company name.” To properly illustrate the steps, we’ll use a personal mailing list in this example. our list will include the following headings:
- first name
- last name
- address
- city
- state
- zip code
This is the standard information you’ll find on shipping labels. you can even insert images into the mailing labels if you want, but that step would come later in word.
related: how to create and print labels in word
Once you’ve finished creating the headers, go ahead and enter your data. once you’re done, your list should look like this:
go ahead and save your list and let’s move on to microsoft word.
step two: configure tags in word
opens a blank word document. then go to the “mails” tab and select “start mail merge”.
in the dropdown menu that appears, select “tags”.
the “tag options” window will appear. here, you can select your label brand and product number. once finished, click “ok”.
your tag outlines will now appear in word.
note: if your label outlines are not showing, go to design > borders and select “view grid lines”.
step three: connect your worksheet to word tags
Before you can transfer the data from excel to your tags in word, you need to connect the two. Back in the “mailings” tab in the word document, select the “select recipients” option.
A dropdown menu will appear. select “use an existing list”.
windows file explorer will appear. use it to locate and select your mailing list archive. with the file selected, click “open”.
the “select table” window will appear. if you have multiple sheets in your workbook, they will appear here. select the one that contains your list. make sure to enable the “first row of data contains column headers” option if it isn’t already, then click “ok”.
Your labels are now connected to your worksheet.
step four: add mail merge fields to tags
Now it’s time to add your mail merge fields into the word tags. select the first label, switch to the “emails” tab, and then click “block addresses”.
in the “insert address block” window that appears, click the “match fields” button.
the “match fields” window will appear. in the “mandatory for address block” group, make sure each setting matches the column in your workbook. for example, “first name” must match “first name”, and so on. once you’ve confirmed that everything is set up correctly, click “ok”.
back in the “insert address block” window, check the preview to make sure everything looks right, then click “ok”.
<<address block>> will now appear in your first tag.
go back to the “mail” tab and then click “update tags”.
once selected, <<addressblock>> it should appear in all tags.
Now, you’re ready to do your mail merge.
step five: perform the mail merge
Now let’s see how the magic happens. in the “mailings” tab, click “finish & merge.”
From the dropdown menu that appears, select “edit individual documents”.
the “merge with new document” window will appear. select “all” and then click “ok”.
your excel list will now be combined with the tags in word.
all that’s left to do now is print your labels and send your mail!