Mail merge Word 2003: creating address labels

By EmpressFelicity

When Word 97 was the latest version of Word (over a decade ago – doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun), creating mail merge labels and other documents was… well, I wouldn’t say it was easy, but it was relatively straightforward.

Then Microsoft decided to “improve” the mail merge process, to the point where it got unbelievably complicated. However, you can make things eas(ier) for yourself, if you follow this “how to” guide which will take you through the process of creating labels using mail merge in Word 2003. You can of course apply the same general principle to doing mail merge letters and envelopes. If you’re using a later incarnation of MS Office than 2003, then sorry but I can’t help you. Not yet, anyway.

OK, here goes. Deep breaths. Make yourself a cup of coffee and grab a doughnut - you might need them (only kidding!).

Start a new document in Word.

Click on Tools, Letters and Mailings, Mail Merge. The Mail Merge wizard appears on the right hand side of the screen:

See all 13 photos

Fig. 1

The first thing you need to do is tell it what sort of document you’re working on. Since we’re doing labels, click on the Labels radio button. Then click the Next: Starting document link at the bottom (under where it says “Step 1 of 6”).

You then get the option of using the current document, starting from a template or starting from another, existing document. Since you started a completely new document earlier, let’s leave it at “Use the current document”.

Then click on Next: Select recipients under where it says “Step 2 of 6”. Word will then give you the chance to change the label format you’re using if necessary. If you don’t want to change it, just click OK in the Label Options dialogue box that comes up:

Fig. 2

(If the Label Options dialogue box doesn’t come up, click the Label Options link in the wizard to make the dialogue box appear, and then click OK.) What should happen is that a grid appears on the page, which reflects the format of the labels you’ve chosen:

Fig. 3

You then need to tell Word which database you’re linking to. Click the Next: Select Recipients link at the bottom of the wizard, and use the Browse link to find the database. In this case, the database is an Excel file in the My Documents folder. For a simple database of names and addresses, Excel is perfectly adequate. Just create the following headings ("fields") in your Excel spreadsheet: Prefix, First Name, Surname, Address Line 1, Address Line 2, Town, County and Postcode. (Or City, State and Zip Code if you're in America.) Then add each record, taking care to make sure the correct type of information goes in the correct field. If you're wondering why there are two address fields, it's to allow you to split long addresses up - you'll see what I mean later on. The Address Line 2 field can be left blank if you don't need it. Your Excel file will look something like this:

Fig. 4

Anyway, back to the mail merging. Confusingly, Word doesn’t take you straight to the My Documents folder when you use the Browse link – it takes you somewhere called My Data Sources, from which you have to navigate up a level using the Up One Level button (it's the button that has a green arrow superimposed on a yellow folder):

Fig. 5

Once you’ve gone up a level, then you’ll find you’re in My Documents. Choose the file you're using as a database, and click the Open button (bottom right hand side of the dialogue box).

Once you’ve clicked Open, you need to choose the table (i.e. the sheet on the Excel file where your data is) from the Select Table dialogue box, which looks something like this:

Fig. 6

In this case, the name of the sheet you want is Addresses which is already selected for you, so just click OK. The Mail Merge Recipients dialogue box comes up:

Fig. 7

Click OK on the Mail Merge Recipients dialogue box. This will make it disappear.

The next stage is to format your labels. Don’t be tempted to click on the Next: Arrange Your Labels link at the bottom of the wizard. It will just cause you lots of pain, and necessitate the intake of large amounts of Valium or a similar tranquillizer. A better option is to use the Insert Merge Fields button on the mail merge toolbar (it's the sixth one in from the left):

Fig. 8

If the mail merge toolbar isn’t showing, use View, Toolbars to activate it. When you click on the Insert Merge Fields button, you get this:

Fig. 9

Click on each field in turn (Prefix, First Name etc.) and click Insert after each one, which will give you this once you’ve clicked the Close button:

Fig. 10

You can then add spaces and hard returns where appropriate, so that the fields are laid out as they should be in an address:

Fig. 11

Then click the Next: Arrange Your Labels link, and then click the Update All Labels button, which gives you:

Fig. 12

It looks a mess, but don’t worry. What you need to do is go back to the Mail Merge toolbar and click the Merge to New Document button:

Fig. 13

When this dialogue box comes up:

Fig. 14

… make sure All is selected, and click OK, which gives:

Fig. 15

How to deal with problems when creating mail merged labels that go on multiple sheets
When you're doing a large mail merge to create labels in Word, do you find that you get an extra half row of addresses, right on the bottom of each page? This hub tells you how to sort it.

Seeeemples!

A final note on mail merging generally

Have you ever wondered why you can’t print page ranges in a mail merged document? It’s a case of all or nothing: you can print individual pages, or you can print the whole document in one go. But you can’t print a specific range. This is because each page in a mail merged document is separated by a section break rather than a page break. In order to print a range of pages, you need to find and replace all the section breaks and replace them with page breaks. Here’s how: