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Inserting merge fields into your document is easy:
Click the Insert Merge Field button on the mail merge toolbar
The Insert Merge Field dialog box will appear
Highlight the name of the field you wish to insert from the list and click Insert. The box will stay open, allowing you to insert more fields. When you are done, click Close. If you insert more than one field in succession, Word will not automatically add space between the fields in your document; you must do this yourself after you close the dialog box. In your document you will see the field name surrounded by double arrows.
Microsoft recently added a mail merge feature that allows you to insert address blocks and greeting lines. By clicking the respective button on the toolbar, Word will allow you to insert several fields at once, arranged in common variations.
The insert address block button is the one on the left; the insert greeting line is on the right
Further, when you click on either button, Word displays a dialog box which gives you some options on which fields you would like inserted, how you would like them to be arranged, what punctuation to include, etc. While this sounds straightforward enough, and it is if you are using a data source created in Word, it can get quite confusing if you are using an Excel worksheet.
Remember my recommendation about using a header row in your worksheet? Well, if you named a field something other than what Word uses as a field name for similar data, Word might match the fields incorrectly. What this means is if you use the insert address block or insert greeting line buttons, the data might appear in a different order than you specify - simply because the labels don't match. Fortunately, Microsoft anticipated this and built in a Match Fields feature that allows you to match your field names to the ones Word uses in the blocks.
To match fields, click on the Match Fields button on the toolbar
In the Match Fields dialog box, you will see a list of Word's field names on the left. On the right side of the box, you will see a column of drop down boxes. The name in the each drop down box is the field that Word is using for each respective field in the Address block or Greeting line block. To make any changes, simply select the field name from the drop down box. Once you are done making changes, click OK.
You can also bring up the Match Fields dialog box by clicking the match fields button at the bottom of either the insert address block or greeting line dialog boxes, both of which appear when you click the respective toolbar button.
Next: Viewing the Merged Documents
Previous: Associating the Data Source
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