Do you have a message that you want to send to multiple contacts, but you don’t want to do the old BCC trick? Better yet… do you want to actually personalise the message for each recipient?
Instead of “Hi all”, what about “Hi Bill”, “Hi Jane” etc?
You can, with email merge in Word 2007.
Email merge works exactly the same as a standard mail merge… except for one big difference. Instead of printing individual letters or envelopes or labels… Word 2007 will generate individual emails, send them to your Outlook 2007 outbox, and then when you are next online in Outlook, Outlook will send each your personalised emails to each addressee.
Kicking off a email merge in Word 2007 is easy.
- Open up Word 2007
- Type your email in Word 2007
- Click on the “Mailings” tab in the ribbon
- In the “Start Mail Merge” grouping, click on the “Start Mail Merge” button. It will show a list of mail merge options available. You can choose Letters, E-Mail Messages, Envelopes, Labels or Directory. In this case as we want to send an email… click on “E-Mail Messages”
- Next you need to select the recipients of your email merge. These names could come from any number or sources… maybe an Excel 2007 spreadsheet? maybe your Outlook 2007 Contacts… or you could just type them yourself.
To do that, click on the “Select Recipients” box in the “Start Mail Merge” group. Either find your data source, your outlook contacts, or create a new list.
- If you want to edit any of the recipients in the list, now is the time to click on “Edit Recipient List” in the “Start Mail Merge” group.
- The next step is to add the appropriate fields to personalise the greeting, the recipients name, or to add any other piece of data you might have on the contact anywhere throughout your recipient list.
You can find the appropriate fields in the “Write & Insert Fields” group (still on the “Mailings” tab).
More than likely you will want to add at least a greeting line (Dear Bill… or something like that). To do that click on the “Greeting Line” button in the “Write & Insert Fields” group. The following dialog box appears
- Once you are happy with your greeting line format, click “OK”. Word 2007 will now drop the field into your document.
- Now you can preview your results to ensure that everyone’s name is coming up correctly. Click the “Preview Results” button in the “Preview Results” group… then use the forward and back arrows beside it to run through your recipient list.
- If you are happy with the preview, not is the time to finish things off and compete the merge. In the “Finish” group on the “Mailings tab” you will see a button called “Finish & Merge”. Click on it, and then click “Send E-mail Messages…”
- Now Word 2007 automatically generates all the individual emails, and sends them to your Outlook 2007 outbox (or your default email client).
- Open up Outlook or your email client, and watch all your emails be sent!
So there you have it… your 12 step guide to Email Merge in Word 2007!
’till next time,
TNP 
Related posts:
- Forward an email as an attachment in Outlook 2007
- Turn On or Off New Email Notifications in Outlook 2007
- Auto Preview in Outlook 2007
- Change the Duration and Transparency of Email Notifications in Outlook 2007
- Change the auto-save time for draft emails in Outlook 2007
32 Comments
Leave a Reply
ABOUT
Help, Tips, Tricks, and Tutorials for Word, Excel, Outlook and more
OFFICE TUTORIALS
What do you do if word does not seem to be linking to Outlook when you create this merge document and send it? I do not get any errors and when I check my out box or my sent box there is nothing there!
It appears there is something wrong and I don’t know where to start to fix the problem.
Please help if you can,
Thanks
Great. Everything works fine – as per your 12 step suggestion. Now, how do I attach another file to the e-mail. My data source is in Excel, not Outlook.
It works but not very good.
I and others on the web report formatting errors for workstations with out Office 2007 installed. I have been using Word for years to send our news letter via email merge and have never had trouble before.
Now when anyone without office 2007 or on Google and Yahoo mail accounts see a very messed up formatting challenged version of what was orig designed.
MICROSOFT PLEASE FIX THIS.
Also it appears that I am not the only one that has trouble with the whole process freezing. During the send routine it goes through between 200 to 350 emails and then freezes. I had a customer have the same trouble and called me to se if I knew why!
Now I have Microsoft Virtual PC installed on Vista In VPC I created a XP virtual session and on the Virtual XP installed my old copy of office 2003. Now I have to go to the Virtual Desktop in XP and launch an old copy of Office 2003 just to send my email newsletter every month. I am looking for alternatives.
While I can go through all the initial steps. Step 10 onwards doesn’t work as the option is grayed out.
I am using Windows Vista
Can we add multiple email addresses? i.e. “email1@home.com; email2@home.com” on our excel spreadsheet.
I have the same issue as Mark, on a smaller scale. I use the same (Excel) list of less than 100 names every month to send a meeting reminder which is created in Word 2007. Outlooks 2007 is my mail client and I’m running Vista Business with SP1 and all patches for both OS and Office. Sometimes the merge and send works so slick that I am just thrilled with it. Other times (same list exactly) the process hangs up multiple times – sending anywhere from a few to twenty email then putting Word in a “Not Responding” mode. I have to kill Word; Restart and recover the file; Edit the list to uncheck those that were successfully sent; Save the file; and then try the merge again. Sometimes I even reboot the computer between recovery and resending, just to clean out the gremlins. Totally random, not reproduceable except that when it fails the first time i know that i am in for multiple failures before all of them are sent.
I having the same problem as Ajay. When I get to the step to send email, the “send email message…” is grayed out.
I am also working with Windows Vista, Word 2007 & Windows Mail (not Outlook).
Please Help!!! I have been working on this for a week now. I know it has to be a way to email merge for Vista’s Windows Mail.
Thanks,
I am having the same problem as several other people here, but with different results. We just got Vista at work and are using Word & Outlook 2007. WHen I do an email mail merge from Word, I can sometimes get about 10-20 to go thru and then it freezes up. At times I can only get 3 to go thru. I usually have over 2000 emails to send.
Has anyone figured out how to fix this or get around it? Please I don’t want to spend all day doing an email.
We also just got Office 2007 at work, I tried sending an email merge yesterday and I had the same problem as the first poster, Cathy. Word went through like it was sending them out – but NOTHING was in my sentbox, outbox and I had no bounces (very unusual).
I too am having the same problems as Ajay and Tonya, when i come to select send email message, it is grayed out.
As is Tonya, i am working with Windows Vista, Word 2007 and Windows Mail, not Outlook.
Can somebody please, please, help?
Kind regards, Lee
I’m looking for your response to Ajay, Tonya and Lee re: using mail merge with Windows vista, Word 2007 and Windows Mail as I’m having the same problem.
I have followed a couple of suggestions from other boards (to no avail) such as:
changing text to plain (from HTML)
ensuring that my default program is Windows Mail
Another suggestion linked me to a Microsoft instruction to update my registry, but I am not that computer literate and do not want to take the chance of corrupting the registry.
I also read somewhere that I had to use Microsoft Outlook, but the Vista I bought did not include it and I also read that installing it as ‘add-on’ program now would not work with mail merge either.
I’m getting to the end of my rope. Can you help?
Thanks!
Hi Everyone,
I have an answer (although probably not what you are looking for) for Barb, Lee Ajay and Tonya… with regard to doing a Mail Merge with Windows Mail (NOT Outlook) on Windows Vista.
From what I gather, you can only do a Mail Merge IF you send your message as plain text.
What does that mean – your email will look pretty plain – no images, graphics, colours etc – just text.
It might meet your needs, but my gut feel says that it wont.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but if you need to rely on a good looking Mail Merege, you might have to upgrade to Outlook 2007.
’till next time!
TNP
By the way – to send an email as plain text, you select that in the very last step of the merge (after you click “Send Email Messages…”)
After installing recent MS Office 2007 updates, email merge useng a 200 record Access 2007 database aborts after merging 6 records. The same thing occurs with an Excel spreadsheet or Outlook contact list as the source for email addresses. Prior to installation of MS Office updates (I just bit the bullet and installed Office 2007 Enterprise Edition last week) Word 2007 / Outlook 2007 email merge worked fine, with formatted text including illustrations.
Short of reinstalling MS Office, is there any way to remove Office updates?
I would like to avoid buying a stand alone email merge program, but knowing Microsoft this is in my future. Any suggestions.
By the way I am emailing event announcements to members of a local not for profit organization – not commercial spam.
Thanks for your assistance.
Did a fresh install of Office2007 and turned off the automatic updates. I am now able to email merge documents containing hyperlinks, formatting, and images. Word 2007 intermittently hangs and needs to be restarted. Occurs most often with Access table as email address list source; works best with Excel table.
Steve
A question, I do have outlook 2007 but still it is not working?
Words is limited. What if I want to send Cc to my boss? What if I want the emails to be sent to Draft instead of sending them all at once?
Hi!
I am using a Vista (not an upgrade) and Office 2007. My mailmerge gets 2 emails out and then word freezes.
I have a very simple message, no fields. I do have a website and email address and was trying to send in html format. I have not tried text yet – but would hope since I am on Office 2007 and Vista Ultimate I wouldn’t have to do that.
Any ideas?
Thank you,
Megan
I have been sending mail merge e-mails with around 200 e-mails in my distribution list using Word 2007 and Outlook 2007 for a long time. I always import distribution list data from Excel in CSV format. Lately I have been having this problem – after I click on Send E-Mail messages in Word and the messages are sent to the Outbox folder, Outlook only sends 3 e-mails at a time. The progress info (bottom right of Outlook) always shows sending messages 1 of 3, 2 of and 3 3 of 3 before it loops back and does the same over and over again until it sends all the e-mails in that merge. Earlier, it used to send them all in one shot. This is taking much longer. How could this have happened and how do I reverse it? Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
[...] Email Merge in Word 2007 [...]
Boy, Microsoft sure makes it difficult to get any help on this. $49.00 to either email, chat, or talk to tech support when the problem is clearly theirs. I have the problem where Word 2007 acts like it is sending all of the messages, but then when you click on Sent items in Outlook, they are clearly not there. One blog suggested opening Outlook first, but this does not work either. I have to figure out a way to send out 4,000 emails, and fast.
Hi Heather…
Short answer to your question is that you might be using the wrong tool for what you are trying to acheive. Whilit I have done email merge’s in the vicinity of 2000 recipients successfully, I have moved away from Word and Outlook to hosted email providers instead – you will get a much better delivery rate, and you can gather some statistics on how many of your emails were opened, if people clicked on things, what things they clicked on etc.
Probably not the answer you were looking for but food for thought.
TNP
Thanks TNP. Actually, it doesn’t work with two recipients either–at least not in HTML. it works with plain text. A Microsoft tech support person took over my computer for 3 hours today, editing my registry, changing the profile in outlook (getting rid of all of my unread messages and my contacts without asking), and reinstalled Word, finally declaring it fixed. It’s not fixed. Microsoft definitely has a problem here that is not being addressed.
By the way, what email providers would you recommend.
I have spent the last three days on the phone with Microsoft until they simply declared that it could not be fixed. I am using Publisher 2007 with Windows Mail which their documentation says will work and they keep saying should work. I have the problem that it looks as though it works counting all the emails it is supposedly sending but then comes back with the message that 0 were sent and they have disappeared. The same thing happens with a 5 person test list in plain text. First they said I have to type in all the names everytime or send individually which I said was not an email merge, how does that help? More than one tech has declared it fixed and hung up without testing and of course it isn’t fixed.
Now they are saying I have to have Outlook 2007 but I don’t want to just spend more money for it not to work anyway. Big problem, I need to communicate with my customer lists and this is not supposed to be the only job I have.
Any experience with Outlook 2003? I don’t like the 2007 interface.
Hmm..there are more questions than answers, but I’ll try anyway.
Merging for me (Windows Vista and Office 2007) works great; however, here is my problem. I oftne send out mass emails using a database of information to personalize each letter. The individual letters; however, need to have additional information added before mailing. However, if I click to edit the individual letters, it becomes a single document without the email option. How do you edit individual letters before they are sent to email? Thanks in advance for any help.
Tim, congrats on your Mail Merge working great for you. Unfortunately, as with most everyone else here, it does not work great for me.
However, to answer your question, if you want to edit some of the emails you’re mail merging before they’re actually sent, you can set Outlook to Work Offline (file > Work Offline), the emails you are sending should sit in your Outbox until you turn off Work Offline. You can click on the emails in your Outbox you need to edit and edit them before they’re sent. Click Send when you’re done editting the email to re-queue the email. To send your emails, turn off Work Offline and click on Send/Receive.
So the last message was posted in March. Has everyone given up or has the problem been fixed?
My XP/Outlook/Word2003 email merge worked great. Hard drive crash. New Vista/Live Mail/Word2007 email merge follows pattern described above. Appears to work, but nothing in outbox!
Any new ideas?
I had difficulty with graphics and text reformatting when the message was sent via Outlook 2007 and Word 2007 email merge. My solution was to create a text box to paste in the graphics and the text, for some reason you need to insert some blank spaces, tabs, and enter or it looks goofy. This works great for messages received by Outlook and Gmail, but Yahoo was still reformating the text and one graphic did not show. I believe that Microsoft just doesn’t want you to send email blasts despite it being a feature of mail merge. I also deal with having to vertify my email every 50 names or so of my list when it is sent out on Outlook. Not great software for a simple newsletter blast to 200 people.
I have sent a few test messages to myself, and everything works except that I cannot find a way to enter text in the subject field. Result- I am sending emails with no subject. Any hints, please?
A few of you are reporting that the merge is working but nothing is sent by Outlook. A possible fix for this (assuming it’s not a MAPI issue) is to make sure you set your default Mail browser to Microsoft Outlook and not Outlook Express.
Go to START, click RUN and type OUTLOOK. This will open the most compatible version of Microsoft Outlook. MO should automatically find and set up your account settings. Go to ToolsOptionsMail SetupEmail AccountsViewChange Email Account. select your one click CHANGE. Make sure it is correct, and type in your email password and set it to default. Now try your Word or Access email merge – it might work this time.
If not, it means your office version is incompatible with your Windows version…….which is another story!
I find I now need to do an e-mail merge and have been reading all your comments and queries – it all looks and sounds so complicated!
My daughter has mailed me the following link which gives a tutorial from Queen’s University Belfast and I think I’m going to try and follow this one, as it looks quie straightforward. Interestingly enough on page 7 it says ‘There is no visible sign of success’!!!
http://www.qub.ac.uk/directorates/media/Media,132207,en.pdf
Anyway, good luck