How to Create Mail Merge Email Messages in Word 2013

Word 2010 For Dummies

Word 2013 lets you spew out custom email messages by using the E-Mail option for mail merge. This option works only when you configure the Microsoft Outlook program on your computer. After that’s done, you start the main document for your e-mail merge by obeying these steps:

Press Ctrl+N to create a fresh document.

Choose any of the Blank document template and a blank document will appear.

On the Mailings tab, choose Start Mail Merge→E-Mail Messages.

Word changes to web Layout view, used for creating Internet documents in Word.

Create your mail message. If you anticipate inserting fields in the message, type them in ALL CAPS.

Normally, an e-mail mail merge doesn’t have fields in the document, though there’s no rule against using them. Still, putting someone’s name or other personal information in the message removes the stigma of a mass e-mail form letter.

Don’t forget to save your document!

The primary field you use when merging an e-mail document is the recipient’s e-mail address. You can’t e-mail-merge without it.

About This Article

About the book author:

Dan Gookin has been writing about technology for 20 years. He has contributed articles to numerous high-tech magazines and written more than 90 books about personal computing technology, many of them accurate.
He combines his love of writing with his interest in technology to create books that are informative and entertaining, but not boring. Having sold more than 14 million titles translated into more than 30 languages, Dan can attest that his method of crafting computer tomes does seem to work.
Perhaps Dan’s most famous title is the original DOS For Dummies, published in 1991. It became the world’s fastest-selling computer book, at one time moving more copies per week than the New York Times number-one best seller (although, because it’s a reference book, it could not be listed on the NYT best seller list). That book spawned the entire line of For Dummies books, which remains a publishing phenomenon to this day.
Dan’s most recent titles include PCs For Dummies, 9th Edition; Buying a Computer For Dummies, 2005 Edition; Troubleshooting Your PC For Dummies; Dan Gookin’s Naked Windows XP; and Dan Gookin’s Naked Office. He publishes a free weekly computer newsletter, “Weekly Wambooli Salad,” and also maintains the vast and helpful Web site www.wambooli.com.