Let’s take a look at creating a Mail Merge document using Microsoft Office Word 2010.

What is Mail Merge?

Mail Merge mass produces letters, mailing labels or other documents. To perform a mail merge you need two types of files: a Data file and a Form file. The Data file, or datasource, contains records. All the variable (changeable) information in the document combines to form a record.

The first step in the creation of the data source is to give each piece of variable information in the document a name. Each piece of variable information is called a field. All the fields combine to form a record.

The Form file contains the portion of the document that remains constant, plus field codes that link to the data source file.

For the purposes of this article, we will be using Mail Merge to send copies of a letter to multiple persons. Start a new blank Word document, click Start > All Programs > Microsoft Office > Microsoft Office Word. You can download a free trial of MS Office, which you can use for 60 days, here, if you don’t have Microsoft Office installed.

Click the Mailings tab. In the Start Mail Merge group click Start Mail Merge button and click Step by step Mail Merge Wizard….

Since we will be writing a letter, select that as the default. Click Next: Starting document.

We are starting a new document, so we will use the current one. Click Next: Select recipients.

This is a new document and we are creating a fresh list for the purposes of this article. You have the option, if your contacts are stored in Outlook, to use that. If you don’t have any contacts you can create new ones from scratch, which is what we will do. Select Type a new list and then click Create.

This will bring up the New Address List window. Microsoft Word will pre-populate the window with common fields for the recipients. To simplify things and avoid confusion, we will customize and create our own columns for the purposes of this article. At the bottom of the window, click Customize Columns….

Here you will see the list of pre-populated fields. Select each one and click Delete until all are removed.

Once you have cleared the fields, enter your own. For the purposes of this article, I will be using the following fields: Name, Addr1, Addr2, Addr3, and Title. Click Add and enter the field name and then click OK. Repeat this step for each field until all are entered.

Once you have all the fields entered, click OK.

Proceed to enter the information for each record. To enter a new record, click New Entry or you can press Tab to go to the next row. When you have completed this step, click OK.

You will be prompted to save your data source. The datasource is saved as a Microsoft Access database. You can give it a logical name such as Contacts or Addresses.

The Mail Merge Recipients window will appear. Here you are given an opportunity to review and edit the recipient information. You can also uncheck any recipients you don’t want to send the letter to. For instance, you might get a last minute response from a recipient telling you they won’t be able to attend. After reviewing and accepting the changes, click OK.

You will notice that groups previously grayed out in the Mailings tab, such as Write & Insert Fields, are now active. This means we are ready to type our letter and enter our Mail Merge fields.

Below is a sample letter I will be using for my mail merge letter.

—————————————————————————————————-

Andre Brown <——————Field1—–Name
Cross Keys P.O. <————– Field2 —–Addr1
Manchester <——————–Field3—–Addr2
Jamaica W.I. <—————— Field4—–Addr3

Dear Mr. Brown <—————Field5——Title

We will be keeping our annual Youth Group fund raising event next week at the Cross Keys Social Center. Our Youth Group would like to invite you to this special event and hope you will be able to invite your friends and family members as well. Please make every effort to be in attendance on June 20, 2011 at 8:00 PM in the main hall.

See you there.

Yours,
Sarah Smith

————————————————————————————-

Since the letter starts out with the address, we can begin inserting the Merge Fields. To do that, click on Insert Merge Field, located in the Write & Insert Fields group.

Repeat this step until all the appropriate Merge fields are inserted, see below:

The next step is to start writing the body of the letter.

Merging the Files

Once you have completed all the necessary steps, you need to merge the letter with the appropriate addresses. To do that, on the Mailings tab in the Finish group click Finish & Merge and then click Edit Individual Documents.

Select All then click OK. Microsoft Word will now work its magic.

All recipients addresses have been merged producing four unique letters to different persons and addresses. Your options include printing and saving these documents.

How to Create a Mail Merge Document Using Microsoft Word is a post by Andre from Notebooks.com.

Launchy is a dead simple and completely free ‘widget’, if you will, for launching applications. I’ve been using Launchy for many months now, and it has pretty much completely replaced the start menu for me, and it saves me time each and every time that I use the computer. It’s there when you need it, and gone when you don’t.

Back in Windows XP, I always wondered why on earth I had to manually search through the long and cluttered start menu. Isn’t that something that the computer should do for me? Though things got better with the Start menu search box in Windows Vista and Windows 7, Launchy is smarter, faster, open-source, and cross-platform (for Windows and Linux).

Ok so how exactly does Launchy work? Well with one press of the customizable keystroke (alt+space by default) a little box pops up on your screen from anywhere in the system (ie: the box will pop-up over any program that you are currently using, meaning you can use Launchy from anywhere). Type just a few letters of the program you’d like to lauch and Launchy will likely find the right one. When you see the icon of the program that you want, just press enter and Launchy will open the application.

Sometimes you don’t remember the exact name of the program that you want to launch. Luckily, Launchy is smart. Type a few letters of what you think the name of the program is, and Launchy does a good job of finding the right one.

In the picture above, I didn’t even spell the name correctly, but Launchy knew what I was going for.

Sometimes there can be multiple matches for applications with similar names. Launchy handles this with ease as well. If your initial query doesn’t return the right program, just wait a few seconds and Launchy will drop down a list of other matches. From there you can use the arrow keys or mouse to select the right one, and Launchy will even remember which one you picked so that next time you search with that query, it’ll go straight to the one that you selected last time.

There is one caveat I’ve noticed about Launchy. I can’t use it to launch the Windows Control Panel. This may be an issue with Launchy, but I suspect that Windows won’t allow third-party programs to launch the Control Panel, so you must do it through the regular old Start menu. But for everything else, Launchy works great.

If you are an advanced user, Launchy offers some additional time saving tricks from the Launchy site:

• Search Google
  • Type in google, then tab, then your search query and press enter
• Check the Weather
  • Type in Weather, then tab, then your zip code or city,state and press enter
• Search other sites
  • Other sites you can search include wikipedia, msn, yahoo, amazon, netflix, imdb, and more.
• Browse your computer
  • Type in c:, then tab, then a folder or file, hit tab, and continue
• The Launchy Calculator
  • Did you know that Launchy has a built in calculator? Type in some algebra and see what happens!
• Index your Bookmarks & Folders
  • Directory: C:Documents and SettingsuserFavorites
  • File Type: .url
• Index your Music
  • Directory: My Documents
  • File Types: .mp3 .aac .ogg
• Index your Pictures
  • Directory: My Documents
  • File Types: .jpg .gif .bmp
• Index your Documents
  • Directory: My Documents
  • File Types: .doc .pdf .xls .ppt
• Index custom Commands
  • Directory: Your Custom Folder
  • File Types: .exe .bat .lnk

I’d really suggest installing Launchy and trying it out for a few weeks. Before you know it, you’ll be a program launching master, using Launchy every time that you want to open a program; it’s just that darn fast and convenient.

For the latest version of Launchy, go to this page. If you are on Windows click the green Download Now button at the top of the page for the latest version. If you are on Linux… I’ll assume you know what you are doing!

Save Time by Launching Programs with Launchy — a Fast, Free, Program Launcher is a post by Ben from Notebooks.com.

• Open new tab: ctrl+t
• Close tab: ctrl+w
• Move to right tab: ctrl+tab
• Move to left tab: ctrl+shift+tab
• Move cursor to address bar: ctrl+l

I’ve prepared a short video showing the different between browsing with and without keyboard shortcuts. It isn’t exactly a practical example of browsing, but the goal here is to show how quickly you can navigate between tabs and websites.

Zoom Around the Web with Keyboard Shortcuts is a post by Ben from Notebooks.com.

Click image to enlarge

Aero Peek Allows you to see behind windows revealing the desktop without the need to minimize windows by simply placing your mouse pointer in the right hand corner of the screen. The Alt-Tab  command supports full preview’s of windows when invoked.

Tip for this visual effect: (Windows Key + Space) or (Alt + Tab)

Click image to enlarge

Aero Snaps – For persons who often do data comparisons with content from two windows on screen, Windows 7 has made this a cinch by simply making it possible to drag the window to opposite sides of your screen; automatically each window will fill its half of the screen.

Tip for this visual effect: (Windows Key + arrow)

Click image to enlarge

Aero Shake - Grab a window title bar, shake it and all windows behind the active window will minimize to the Taskbar, shake it again and all windows will return to the screen.

Desktop Slideshow This is not really a time saver, but if you want to use up some idle time at work before the clock hit’s 5 P.M. here’s is a nice feature of the Windows Desktop you definitely will enjoy. In Windows 7, Microsoft provides in addition to window colour, the ability to choose pre-packaged themes that matches the bundled wallpapers. Glass colour options have increased from 8 in Vista to 16 now in 7. The Personalization explorer supports changing your desktop wallpaper automatically at timed intervals or you invoke it manually by right clicking the desktop and click the ‘Next Desktop Background Picture’ contextual menu option. You can selectively choose different wallpapers you would like to be added to the slideshow, you can even create your own themes and save them. The Personalization explorer itself is more centralized providing a one stop approach to customizing your Desktop Background, Sounds and Screen Saver while you are at it. Let me show you how to setup a Slideshow and Save a theme in Windows 7.

Right click Desktop > click Personalize

In the Personalization shell, click Desktop Background 

Hover over wallpaper and check the box that appears, do this for more than one wallpaper.

Then click in the ‘Change picture every:’ list box and select a timed interval > Save Changes.

You can also save custom backgrounds and Aero Glass colour by simply selecting the ‘Save theme’ in Personalization.

You can get more themes and backgrounds online if you are not satisfied with the pre-bundled collection at the Windows 7 Personalize your PC website.

Using the Windows 7 Desktop – Fun Time Savers is a post by Andre from Notebooks.com.