There are a few ways. Here's my favourite but which one will be your
favourite depends on your exact goals. From what you have said, this should
suit you:
1. Use Categories to enable you to Group the Contacts into like groups.
Edit the Categories so they make sense to you in the Master Category List
(bottom right corner of each Contact will get you there.Categories are one
of the most powerful functions in Outlook.
2. Show the Advanced Toolbar (View | Toolbars)
3. Select the Contacts folder and change the view from Address Cards to
Phone List. Do that in the Current View window - it tell you which View you
are in.
4. Use the 2 best buttons in Outlook (for manipulating data that is) - the
Group By Box and the Field Chooser. They are to the right of the Current
View window on the Advanced Toolbar that says which View you are in.
5. Click the Group By Box (beside the Current View window) you can now Group
by whichever Field is useful to you, even up to 4 fields. So you can group
by Company and then State (drag both of those fields into the Group By Box).
Or by Category and then State. etc etc
6. To quickly Categorise a lot of Contacts is easy! Open a Contact and use
the button, bottom right corner to set a Category for them. Save and Close.
That's 1 done! To put lots of people in the same Category, you can Ctrl
Click them, then right click the selected ones and set a Category from the
drop down menu. Another way is to Group by Category and drag Contacts from
the None group to another group eg Friends. Both ways are fast. The second
requires you to have at least 1 person already in the destination group.
7 Now for the aim of all this - an email merge!!!! Select the people you
want to email merge to. (you can highlight a whole grouped Category or any
grouping). Tools | Mailmerge | select to email | write a Subject | OK.
Word will start of its own accord.
8. Write the email and use the Insert Merge Fields Button to put First Name
into the Text of your email. Don't use the Insert Word Fields button!
So I could write:
Hi <<First_name>> (here I use the button to insert the field)
You and your colleagues from << Company>> are invited to my birthday party.
9. ABC button on the merging toolbar will show you the merged data.
10. A bit further to the right on the merging toolbar is a Merge to Email
button. If you are ready to send NOW. Click that and then OK.
Done. And no it's not a short process!!!
I hope this helps you at least a little bit!
Judy Gleeson
MVP Outlook
Outlook trainer and author of Productiv_IT with Outlook
www.acorntraining.com.au
Canberra, Australia
Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the usual
way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody thinks of
complaining.
Jef Raskin, interviewed in Doctor Dobb's Journal
