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Goal
To develop computer skills; to develop job search skills.
Objective
Learners will use mail merge to prepare a cover letter to send to six people.
Skills
Creating a job search/cover letter for self-promotion, cultivating contacts for
job search networking; using MS Word’s Mail Merge, printing on envelopes.
Pre-requisite skills
Basic word processing, creating tables.
Time
About 2 hours.
Related Activities
Sample Cover Letter, My Personal Network, Where’s the Party?
Activity
Part One: Creating the Letters
Explain what mail merging is and the different documents involved.
Use the contacts from the homework contacts list.
Create a new worksheet using MS Excel. Use an area which is six columns by 11 rows (including field headings).
Put the following info in the table:
First
Last
Address
City
State
Zip
Save this worksheet as “contacts.”
Open the document with your job search letter. Remove any address information and greeting from your letter. Save it with the name “jobltr.”
On the tools menu, choose “Mail Merge.” In Mail Merge Helper, under #1, choose “Create,” then choose “Form Letters.” Click “Active Window.”
In Mail Merge Helper, under #2 (Data Source), click “Get Data.” Choose “Open Data Source.” Find your contacts document and select it.
When a dialogue box pops up saying you have no merge fields in your document, click on the “Edit Main Document” button.
There will now be a Mail Merge Toolbar under your other toolbars. Click on “Insert Merge Field.” Add the fields in an address format. Use spaces, commas and new lines where appropriate.
Leave a blank line below the address. Type in “Dear.” Leave a space. Click on “Insert Merge Field,” and choose “First.”
Go back to Tools-> Mail Merge. Under step #3 of the Mail Merge Helper, choose “Merge.” Word creates a document with all your letters and names it “Form Letters 1.” Save it with the name “myletters.”
If you notice any mistakes in either your contact information or in the letter itself, change the document with the mistake, return to your “jobltr” document, and choose Tools->Mail Merge again. Click on merge for #3 and Word will create another series of form letters, incorporating the changes you made. You will need to save it again as “myletters.”
Part Two: Making the Envelopes
Open a blank new document.
Under the Tools menu, go to “Envelopes and Labels.”
Leave the Delivery address field empty (it will be filled in later by mail merge). Type your name and address in the Return address field.
Click on “Add to Document.” Word inserts a section break after your return address.
Click after the section break. Tap enter three times.
Go to Tools ->Mail Merge. In the Mail Merge Helper under #1, click “Create.” Choose “Envelopes.” Click on “Active Window.”
Under #2 ->Get Data, click on “Open Data Source.” Choose your contacts document.
Dialogue box appears, click on “Set Up Main Document.” Look at the envelope options and printing options. Click OK.
Envelope address dialogue box appears. Click on “Insert Merge Field.”
Add fields for the addresses.
In the Mail Merge Helper, click on the “Merge” button. In the dialogue box, click on the Merge.
Word creates a document called “Envelopes1.” Save this document as “contacts_env.”
Before printing all the envelopes, print out one as a sample to make sure it’s placed in the printer correctly. If you need to make changes, do so before printing all of the envelopes.
Follow-up Activity
Learners can work with an actual job search letter they would send to their
contacts.