Overview of Mail Merge

Mail merge takes data from the Abacus database and inserts it into Microsoft Word or WordPerfect documents such as letters, mailing labels, or name tags. You insert variable mail merge fields into your document and Abacus inserts the data from the selected records into these fields. For example, you might insert a mail merge field for a client name into a letter so that the mail merge would combine this letter with a list of recipients to produce one letter for each person in the list.

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NOTE: Before using Mail Merge, it is helpful to identify your word processor in User Preferences.

Follow these steps for a mail merge:

Step 1: Set up Mail Merge (optional)

There are a few optional settings you can change in preparation for the mail merge.

Step 2: Create the mail merge template

The mail merge template is the base document that will be used in the mail merge. It includes standard content to be replicated in each mail merged document, but it also contains mail merge fields for variable information that is unique to each mail merge document. The mail merge fields pull data from individual Abacus records.

Step 3: Perform the mail merge

To perform the mail merge, you identify the mail merge template and select the records you want to merge.

NOTE: For troubleshooting with MS Word, click here.