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Mail Merge
A good
understanding of Mail merge will save you hours of time in the office
and greatly expand your capacity for sending personalised
communications on a larger scale.
By automatically
inserting variable
information into a standard
document, mail merge allows you to create anything from mailing
labels to letters (like the above example).
Do you want to learn
how to use mail merge?
Perhaps you'd like
to improve
your mail merge skills.
Or maybe you are
short handed and need help to complete that important mailing.
We
can show you how to enhance your own knowledge of this useful tool,
or set up and undertake mail merge arrangements on your behalf.
You could learn new
skills
like printing a scanned
colour signature
on a laser printed letter, freezing
an address position
to match a window envelope, or coping
with problems in the middle of mail merge printing.
Read on for a more detailed review of some aspects that might
interest you:
A few examples
of where to use mail merge
Regular
personalised contact with customers, staff, employees, society or
club members. Surveys and market research, invitations to trade shows
& conferences, staff or salesforce incentives, customer
retrospective discount schemes, customer loyalty programs, new
product and service updates, price change notifications, updating
software issues, running a dealer network. To name but a few.
General considerations
The ease and scope
of communicating by mail merge, limitations of word processor as a
database, limitations of database as a word processor, the benefits
of hard copy documents v Email and the Internet.
Constructing a document
The message,
beckoning the reader, frames and text boxes to enhance and stabilise
the layout, tables to improve information display, adding a scanned
signature, inserting illustrations, positioning mail merge fields.
Letter variants according to data availability, inducements to
respond. Printed output: documents, envelopes, labels, a sample
letter and form.
Setting up the
spreadsheet or database
Setting up records
in a spreadsheet, formatting data, adding calculations and
serialising records to minimise printing problems and allow easier
re-printing of specific records. Constructing a database, main types
of field: text, numeric, date and calculated, key/unique fields,
constructing a form, basic contact & address fields.
Entering and
editing data
Manually entering
information, speeding up data entry: record copies, default entries,
filling fields, date shortcuts, Importing information from other
computers: yours and others, numbering records, sorting and finding
records, finding blank and non-blank fields, converting to
upper/lower case, summation and count calculated fields, automated
initials, salutation and gender conflicts, If and other calculated
fields, selecting and editing groups of records, joining to another
table/database, importing additional records to a file, looking for
duplicate entries, deleting records, exporting records to Excel or
text files, taking backup copies
Selecting from
the database
Linking the
document to the spreadsheet or database file. Selection criteria:
And, Or and basic search parameters, Query options, Reviewing the
document, File size and memory limitations, Printing the document
Mailing considerations
Type of paper for
printing, double sided printing, isolating page 1 on letterhead.
Choosing envelope sizes and types, plain or window, self seal by
hand, peel and seal or gummed, machine envelopes. Options for mailing
labels. Folding and filling envelopes, franking before or after
packing, collection by Royal Mail, other RM services including
franking your mail, Freepost and Business Licence reply paid, PO Box Numbers
Producing
reports and summaries
Recording
responses, Joining tables and databases, Using Queries or Found sets,
Summarising information, Extracting discrete entries with a crosstab
report or pivot table, Displaying information graphically with charts |
