Further personalize documents

Now let's say we want to go all the way with personalization

and insert text directly in each e-mail. Here are two ways to do that.

First, click Finish & Merge and Edit individual Documents.

And click OK.

Word performs the mail merge, and places all the merged e-mails in one document.

Now you can scroll through the document and type your individual comments.

This process works best for letters, because when you're done,

all you have to do is print the document.

Email messages on the other hand can take a lot more time,

because you have to manually copy and paste each message into an email form.

So if you want to save time, the best way to add comments to individual emails

is to create a Comment field. Let's try that instead.

Go back to the original document, and save and close it.

Then, open the data file in Excel.

And add a new column - just like we did before - called Comments.

Now you can type individual comments in the column.

Expand the formula bar if you need more room.

And if you want to add a paragraph, press Alt + Enter.

When you're done, save and close the workbook.

Then, reopen the document in Word. Click Yes to open the Excel file.

Next, click in the document where you want to add the comments.

Open Insert Merge Field and select the Comments field. Then, preview the result.

Notice that Word formats the text so that everything has a consistent look.

After you add all your merge fields, preview the results,

and refine your recipient list, it's time to send your emails.

Click Finish & Merge and Send Email Messages.

Type a Subject line for the emails, and when you're ready to send them, click OK.

And Outlook sends the emails.

Here's one more thing that you may find useful.

You can use mail merge to create a print-out of your recipient list. Here's how to do it.

Open a new blank document. Then, in the Mailings tab, click Start Mail Merge and Directory.

Then, click Select Recipients and Use an Existing List.

Open the Excel file and choose the table you want.

Next, you can use any method you want to insert mail merge fields.

We'll just use a table.

Click the Insert tab, and insert a table with three columns and one row.

Go back to the Mailings tab.

Click the first cell, click Insert Merge Field and select a field.

Then, add merge fields to the other columns.

If you want to see more fields in your document, just add more columns.

You can also edit the recipient list to filter and sort the data.

When you're done, click Finish & Merge and Edit Individual Documents.

Word merges the data and creates a table of your selected merge fields.

This method can be especially useful

if you want to quickly create a print-out of a very large, complex database.

So now you have more information for using the mail merge feature in Word.

Next, take the Advanced Mail Merge course to learn how to do more with field codes.

You may also be interested in learning more about tables in Excel.

Check out the links in the course summary.