How to Do a Mail Merge for Letters or Labels
Intermediate
How-To · Word
Send the same letter or labels to a whole list of people, each personalized automatically.
- Prepare your recipient list in Excel first, with a clear header row (Name, Address, etc.) — this becomes your data source.
- In Word, go to Mailings > Start Mail Merge, and choose Letters or Labels depending on what you're producing.
- Go to Mailings > Select Recipients > Use an Existing List, and pick your Excel file.
- Write your letter as normal, then place your cursor wherever personalized data should go and click Mailings > Insert Merge Field to insert things like «First Name».
- Use Mailings > Preview Results to check a few recipients look correct before finishing.
- Click Mailings > Finish & Merge > Print Documents (or Edit Individual Documents to review each one first) to generate the final set.
Running into an error instead of just needing the how-to? Check our Word troubleshooting guides or the error lookup.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I use an Excel spreadsheet as my data source?
Yes — Excel is one of the most common data sources for mail merge, and Word connects to it directly without needing to convert or reformat the data first.
Will mail merge send emails, or just create documents?
It can do either — merging to a printer or new document creates individual letters, while merging to email (if you have Outlook configured) sends personalized messages directly.
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