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A Publication Featuring The Information Services Technology of Maine State Government

Volume IV, Issue 8

August 2001

PC Genie

Creating Labels in Word Using Data from Access

Do you have a database full of names and addresses that you want to use as mailing labels? Have you tried to do this in Access, only to discover it is a cumbersome process, especially when you want to modify the labels? Have you wanted to send mailing labels to someone who doesn’t use Access? Well, fortunately you can create mailing labels (or form letters for that matter) in Word using data you have stored in an Access database.

While this sounds a bit daunting, rest assured it is an easy process. Just follow these instructions and you can unleash the power of the Office suite.

In this example I will use the Northwind sample database that comes with Access 2000. This database is located in the Program Files/Microsoft Office/Office/Samples folder of the local drive. This database has a customer table set up, that includes standard fields used in a contact list.

Select the table that holds the data you want to use – customers in this example or you can create a query in Access and select it to use as the merge data.
Click Tools, Office Links, Merge It With MS Word. This opens the Mail Merge Wizard
Select Link Your Data to an Existing Microsoft Word Document or Create A New Document and Then Link the Data to it – in this example we will create a new document. Word opens a blank document (a form letter) and displays the merge toolbar.
Click Tools, Mail Merge from the menu
In the Mail Merge Helper dialog box, click Create in Section 1
Choose Mailing Labels from the drop down menu
Choose Change Document Type from the message box
Click Setup in the Mail Merge Helper dialog box
Select your mailing label type – I selected Avery 5160 and choose OK
In the Sample Label box click Insert Merge Field, and you will see the field names from the customer table. Click the first field you want displayed in your mailing labels, and simply press enter to move to the next line
Click Insert Merge Field and select the next field you want to display. Continue this process until you have added the fields you want to include. Don’t forget to include any spaces or punctuation you want to display in the label.
When you are finished click OK. You should see a merge document behind the dialog box that displays the merge field names
Click Close to go directly to the merge document – You could select Merge from Section 3 of the dialog box and perform the merge immediately. I generally go to the merged document to review my work before I do the complete merge.
In the Merge Toolbar, click the View Merged Data button to preview the data before performing the merge.
If there are any problems with the data click the View Merged Data and make the changes.
When you are ready to run the merge click the Merge button on the Merge Toolbar.
If you want to sort the merge output, or limit the data that is merged, click the Query Options button and make those selections before performing the merge. Keep in mind that Word retains the merge options you select, so you will need to change then if you run the merge at another time.
By default Word merges to a new document. It is not necessary to save this document - rather you should save the original merge document to use at a later time.
To mail the document, Select File, Send To from the menu. I generally choose Mail Recipient (As Attachment). A new e-mail window will display with your labels as an attachment. All you need to do is address the mail to the intended recipient. If you didn’t save the merged output, Word will give the document a default name of Labelsx.doc when it sends it via e-mail.

There you have it, labels in Word via data in Access. Happy merging!