How to Create a Mail Merge in Word: Mailings Tab Guide

To create a mail merge in Word, open the Mailings tab and work from left to right: Start Mail Merge (pick the document type), Select Recipients (connect your list), insert fields, Preview Results, then Finish & Merge. This guide explains every option along the way, and ends with fixes for the errors people run into most: wrong number and date formats, blank address lines and missing recipients.

The steps below refer to Word for Microsoft 365 on Windows. Word for Mac has the same Mailings tab with almost identical buttons. Word on the web can open a mail merge document but cannot run a mail merge. If you have never done one before, start with our simple mail merge walkthrough and come back here when you need a specific option.

The Mailings tab at a glance

Create: Envelopes and Labels for a single address (not a mail merge).
Start Mail Merge: Start Mail Merge, Select Recipients, Edit Recipient List.
Write & Insert Fields: Highlight Merge Fields, Address Block, Greeting Line, Insert Merge Field, Rules, Match Fields, Update Labels.
Preview Results: Preview Results, record navigation, Find Recipient, Check for Errors.
Finish: Finish & Merge.

Most buttons stay grey until the step before them is done. Insert Merge Field, for example, only becomes active once a recipient list is connected.

Step 1: Start Mail Merge and choose the document type

Open the document you want to use (or a blank one) and click Start Mail Merge. The type you pick decides how Word lays out the result:

Letters: one copy of the document per recipient, each starting on a new page. Use it for letters, certificates, contracts and anything one page or longer.
E-mail Messages: one email per recipient, sent through Outlook. The document text becomes the email body.
Envelopes: asks for the envelope size and turns the page into an envelope; each recipient gets one envelope.
Labels: asks for the label product (for example a standard address label sheet) and fills one label per recipient, several per page.
Directory: puts all records one after another in a single document, without page breaks. Use it for phone lists, catalogs or a printed participant list.
Normal Word Document: removes the mail merge setup and turns the file back into an ordinary document.
Step-by-Step Mail Merge Wizard: the same process as a six-step pane on the right. Handy the first time, slower afterwards.

Step 2: Select Recipients

Select Recipients connects the document to your data source. There are three choices:

Type a New List: enter recipients in a small form inside Word. Word saves the list as a separate address list file. Fine for a dozen names, tedious for more.
Use an Existing List: the usual choice. Pick an Excel workbook, CSV file, Access database or another supported file. For Excel, the Select Table window then asks which sheet to use; tick First row of data contains column headers.
Choose from Outlook Contacts: uses a contacts folder from Outlook.

Word connects to one sheet or range per mail merge. How to lay out that sheet (header row, one record per row, text versus number columns) is covered in our guide to preparing Excel data for a mail merge.

Step 3: Edit Recipient List (filter, sort, deduplicate)

Edit Recipient List opens the Mail Merge Recipients window. Here you decide who is included without touching the source file:

Checkboxes: untick a row to leave that recipient out.
Sort: order the letters, for example by postal code for bulk mail.
Filter: include only rows that match conditions, such as Country Equal to Germany, or Balance Greater than 0. Comparisons include equal, not equal, less than, greater than, is blank, is not blank, contains and does not contain, and several conditions can be combined with And or Or.
Find duplicates: lists rows that look the same so you can untick the extras.
Find recipient: searches the list for a name or value.
Refresh: select the data source in the lower box and click Refresh after you changed and saved the Excel file.

Filters and unticked rows are saved with the document. They are also the most common reason for "missing" recipients later (see the fixes below).

Step 4: Insert fields

Insert Merge Field

Places a single column, such as «FirstName» or «InvoiceNumber», at the cursor. This is the most flexible option and the one most people use for everything. Highlight Merge Fields shades all fields grey so you can spot them in a long document.

Address Block

Inserts a complete postal address as one field. In its dialog you choose the name format (for example "Mr. Joshua Randall Jr." or just "Joshua Randall"), whether to include the company name, and whether to show the country or region always, never, or only when it differs from your own. Address Block skips empty lines automatically, which is its main advantage over separate fields. If the preview shows the wrong data, click Match Fields and tell Word which of your columns is the first name, the street, the city and so on.

Greeting Line

Inserts a salutation such as "Dear Mr. Randall,". You choose the greeting word, the name format and the punctuation, plus a fallback for rows where the name is missing ("Dear Sir or Madam,"). It needs a title column (Mr., Ms., Dr.) matched via Match Fields to produce formal greetings. For more control, for example a different greeting per title, see the salutation rules in our business letter mail merge guide.

Rules

The Rules button inserts Word fields that change the output per record:

If...Then...Else: inserts one text or another depending on a field value, for example a reminder sentence only when Balance is greater than 0.
Skip Record If: leaves out records that match a condition, for example rows where Email is blank. (A filter in Edit Recipient List does the same job and is easier to check.)
Ask and Fill-in: prompt you for a value during the mail merge, either once or for every record.
Merge Record # and Merge Sequence #: insert the record's position, useful for numbering letters.
Next Record and Next Record If: move to the next record without starting a new page. Labels use Next Record automatically to put several recipients on one sheet.
Set Bookmark: stores a value you can reuse elsewhere in the document.

Step 5: Preview Results and check for errors

Click Preview Results to replace the fields with real data. The arrows next to it step through the records, and Find Recipient jumps to a specific one. Check at least the first record, a record with an empty optional field, and one with long values.

Check for Errors offers three modes: simulate the mail merge and report errors in a new document, complete it while pausing at each error, or complete it and report errors at the end. Simulation is a safe test before a large print run.

Step 6: Finish & Merge

Edit Individual Documents: creates a new document (named Letters1, Labels1 and so on) containing all records, one after another. You choose All, Current record, or a From/To range. Use this to proofread, make one-off edits, or save the result.
Print Documents: sends the records straight to the printer, with the same All, Current record or range choice.
Send Email Messages: available for the E-mail Messages type. You pick the column with the email address, type a subject line, and choose HTML or plain text. Word sends the emails through Outlook, which must be set up as your default mail app.

Two limits are worth knowing before you start. Word has no option to save each record as a separate PDF: Edit Individual Documents gives you one file, and File > Save As > PDF turns that into one combined PDF. Splitting it per recipient needs a macro or an add-in. And Send Email Messages puts the document text into the email body; it cannot attach a separate file such as a PDF letter to each recipient.

Save the main document as well. When you reopen it, Word asks whether to run an SQL command that reads your data source. Click Yes to reconnect.

Common mail merge errors and how to fix them

Numbers show too many decimals or lose the currency

Word reads the stored value of an Excel cell, not the way the cell is displayed. 1,250.5 formatted as currency in Excel can arrive as 1250.5, and calculated values can show long decimals. Fix it with a number switch on the field. Press Alt+F9 to show field codes (or right-click the field and choose Toggle Field Codes) and add a switch inside the braces:

{ MERGEFIELD Amount \# "#,##0.00" }

Press Alt+F9 again to hide the codes, then preview. You can add a currency symbol inside the quotes. The separators Word uses depend on your system's regional settings.

Dates show in the wrong format

Dates often arrive in US order (month first) or with a time attached. Add a date switch, using capital M for months:

{ MERGEFIELD InvoiceDate \@ "d MMMM yyyy" }

That prints 14 November 2026. "dd/MM/yyyy" prints 14/11/2026. If a date still looks wrong, the Excel column probably contains text rather than real dates.

Postal codes or IDs lose their leading zeros

Excel stores 02134 as the number 2134. Either format the column as Text in Excel before typing the values, or force five digits in Word with \# "00000". The Excel side is explained in our Excel data guide.

Blank lines where a field is empty

If you build the address from separate fields and some rows have no Address2 or Company, Word leaves an empty line. Two fixes: use Address Block, which suppresses empty lines, or wrap the line in an IF field so the paragraph mark is only printed when the field has a value. Insert the braces with Ctrl+F9 (typed braces do not work) and press Enter inside the quotes:

{ IF { MERGEFIELD Address2 } <> "" "{ MERGEFIELD Address2 }
" "" }

Recipients are missing

Open Edit Recipient List and look for unticked rows or an active filter (Filter > Clear All).
Check that you picked the right sheet in Select Table. A workbook with several sheets often has the list on the second one.
If you added rows in Excel, save the workbook, then click Refresh in the recipient list or reopen the main document.
Check for a Skip Record If rule in the document (Alt+F9 shows it).

When Word's options run out: MailMergic

The Mailings tab is good at printed letters, envelopes and labels. It gets awkward when you need one PDF per recipient, an email with each person's document attached, or dates and amounts that look the same as in your spreadsheet. MailMergic uses the same Word templates in the browser:

Upload your .docx template and your Excel, CSV or Google Sheets data.
Drag columns into the document as placeholders. Date, currency and number formats from Excel are kept without field switches.
Generate one PDF or Word file per row, each named from your data (for example Invoice_Smith.pdf), and download them as a ZIP.
On the paid plans, email each document to its recipient as a PDF attachment, with merge fields in the subject and message. No Outlook needed.

There is a free plan with 100 documents a month (with a watermark). Start a Word mail merge in MailMergic or see how Word mail merge in MailMergic compares to the built-in feature.