Mail Merge in Word for Mac Using an Excel List
Turn one letter and a spreadsheet into personalised letters for every recipient, step by step in Word for Mac.
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Step-by-step instructions
Mail merge on the Mac trips people up in two places: the security warning Word throws when it opens an Excel file, and knowing where the merge fields actually go. Neither is difficult once you have seen it. This walks through a letter merge with an Excel list as the data source, from a blank Mailings tab to a finished document with one letter per recipient.
- Open your letter in Word and switch to the "Mailings" tab.
- Click "Select Recipients" and choose "Use an Existing List…".
- Pick your Excel file and click "Open".
- Word warns that the file needs the Excel Workbook text converter and may pose a security risk. This appears for every Excel data source and is expected. Click "Yes".
- In the "Open Workbook" dialog, leave the Cell Range on "Entire Worksheet" and click "OK".
- Place the cursor where the first field belongs, deleting any placeholder text you had there.
- Click "Insert Merge Field" and choose the column you want, for example "Company".
- Repeat for each field. Word shows them in double angle brackets, like «Company» and «First_Name», so you can tell a real field from ordinary text.
- Click "Preview Results" to check one actual record before you merge. The brackets are replaced by real data.
- Click "Finish & Merge" and choose "Edit Individual Documents…".
- Leave Merge Range on "All" and confirm. Word builds a new document containing one finished letter per row of your spreadsheet.
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