Everything looks good so I'll click okay. I can click this pull down and choose which header file in my Excel document I want it to use. For example, Word is going to look for something called first name. This is going to allow you to match up certain known fields with what's in your Excel file. If you notice that this first name field isn't matching up, for example, maybe you have a zip code in here instead, click match fields down at the bottom. Finally, I can click these arrows to preview it directly from my list to see how it's going to look. I'm going to keep it as dear sir or madam. If it has trouble with the first name, I can manually override this and this is what it will put it in its place. I can also choose whether I want a comma, a colon, or nothing. So I'll scroll all the way down and pick just the first name. For example, I do want it to say dear, but I don't want the first and last name that's too formal for me. I can click any of these arrows for a pull down menu and further refine this. Still in the mailings ribbon tab, I'm going to click greeting line. For example, I'll start by deleting the text dear customer. What we need to do now is take this text and turn them into merge fields. I'm going to keep everybody selected and I'll click okay. Finally, if you want to leave out certain people, you can always uncheck them from this list. You can also click find duplicates if your list wasn't that tidy to begin with. So you can filter based on any particular field in that Excel file. To get everything back, click filter again and then just choose clear all. I'll choose my state field and I'll leave equal to and I'll put in a state. I'll click the down arrow next to field and it's pulling these right from those column headers in Excel. At the bottom of the dialog where it says refine recipient list, I'm going to click filter. If I only wanted to do this mail merge and send this letter to people who lived in a certain state, I can filter it. Something fun that you can do from here is further refine your list. This is everything that was in that Excel file. In fact on the bottom right hand side of the screen I can click and drag to make this a little bit bigger. For example, I can click edit recipient list and edit that Excel file right from here. And while initially nothing appears to have happened, some things that were grayed out now are available for us to use. We only have the one sheet in that Excel file so I'll make sure it's selected and I'll make sure there's a check mark beside first row data contains column headers. Now it's giving me the option to select the worksheet. Here it is, so I'll select it and click open. So, still in that mailings tab, I'll click select recipients and I'll choose to use an existing list which is the option if you have an Excel file. I did show you that in the Excel file and I showed you what the three options were but we never told this Word document to use an existing list. I'm going to zoom out a little bit on the bottom right just so that you can see it more clearly. Here's my letter about the old drone receiver and how it's being discontinued. In fact, I'm going to paste in some things that I've already written. I'm in Microsoft Word, still on the mailings tab and now I can just start typing my text as normal. We've identified who we're sending our letter to, we've made sure the Excel file is all nice and tidy and in merge condition, now, let's write our letter.
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