Mailmerge using Contacts as data source

[Mary]

I’m running Windows XP and Outlook 2002. I have thousands of contacts, and I send a Xmas letter to about 200 of them. When I did Mail Merge from Word 2000 in Win 98, it let me select from a Contacts subfolder in Outlook 2000 that I had copied the people I send the Xmas letter to. When I go through the Mail Merge wizard in Word 2002, every name in the Outlook folder comes up and I have to select which ones I want. This is too cumbersome. I know there must be an easier way. When I try Mailmerge in Outlook, it doesn’t give me the appropriate choices for my data source. I’d appreciate some help. Thanks alot

 

[Greg Maxey]

Mary,

Have your tried starting your mailmerge from OUTLOOK? See:
http://www.gmayor.dsl.pipex.com/mailmerge_from_outlook.htm

I created a Category "Christmas Letter" that I assigned to people
unfortunate enough to make my list. I then filter the view based to show
only contacts in that category before performing the merge. I didn't test
it out, but it might also work if you have a dedicated Contact folder with
your "fortunates."

HTH

 

[Mary]

Thanks Greg, but it didn't help. When I go to the Contact folder I want to merge and click mail merge, I select Envelopes and Printer as my options. I then get a dialog box stating that I have to click Setup in the Helper Dialog box, which is simply the envelope size and orientation. When I then click OK, nothing happens. Fooling around with the Mail Merge Helper dialog box, I click Edit Data Source and get some squiggles; I click Get Data and get a selection about which I am clueless: Connect to New Data Source.odc, or New SQL Server Connection.odc. If I try Use Address Book, Outlook Address Book, (or Personal Address Book),it still clearly tries to get the thousands of files rather than the few that are in the View window, but in any case, a choice to “Merge†never comes up. What am I doing wrong?????

----- Greg Maxey wrote: -----

Mary,

Have your tried starting your mailmerge from OUTLOOK? See:
http://www.gmayor.dsl.pipex.com/mailmerge_from_outlook.htm

I created a Category "Christmas Letter" that I assigned to people
unfortunate enough to make my list. I then filter the view based to show
only contacts in that category before performing the merge. I didn't test
it out, but it might also work if you have a dedicated Contact folder with
your "fortunates."

HTH

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi =?Utf-8?B?TWFyeQ==?=,

After you've chosen the envelope size, click "Close" so that you can view the
envelope, and the data preview. You don't need to do anything with "Get data" -
it's already been done for you.

When I go to the Contact folder I want to merge and click mail merge, I select

Envelopes and Printer as my options. I then get a dialog box stating that I have
to click Setup in the Helper Dialog box, which is simply the envelope size and
orientation. When I then click OK, nothing happens. Fooling around with the
Mail Merge Helper dialog box, I click Edit Data Source and get some squiggles; I
click Get Data and get a selection about which I am clueless: Connect to New Data
Source.odc, or New SQL Server Connection.odc. If I try Use Address Book, Outlook
Address Book, (or Personal Address Book),it still clearly tries to get the
thousands of files rather than the few that are in the View window, but in any
case, a choice to “Merge†never comes up. What am I doing wrong??
Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Sep 30 2003)
http://www.mvps.org/word

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