Introduction

A mail merge is a word processing feature that allows creating common letters, mailing labels, envelopes, or cataloging documents to and/or for a group of people as stored in a database.

Some examples of mail merge scenarios are:

• A letter has to be sent to various parents, tutors, or guardians of students of a high school.

• A company keeps track of its various customers with the product each particular customer is interested in; then the company regularly sends a letter to these customers to signal a promotion or special discount they would benefit from.

• An employer would like to send a letter to employees according to their respective department.

When creating a Mail Merge in Microsoft Word, you can use data from various sources including a Microsoft Outlook contact list, a Microsoft Excel worksheet, a Microsoft Access database, or a Notepad text document. But the easiest way is to create a small database of items in Microsoft Word. Then, insert these items or data into a main document that you will eventually create or design.