E-MAIL MERGE FROM EXCEL SPREADSHEET (2000 & XP)

Topic

New Reply

I use Office 200 at home & XP (2002) at work. My question applies to both versions.
I have a rush project which has just been dropped in my lap that I’m hoping there is a reasonably simple solution to.

I have an excel spreadsheet with name/address/phone/e-mail information for members of a non-profit organization. There are approximately 350 members, and I’d guess that 1/2 of the entries have e-mail addresses.

I need to send a message to all members w/ e-mail. I’d like it to send a separate message to each member, but I would settle for a bulk mailing, if necessary.

Is it possible to do an e-mail merge in Outlook using data in the Excel spreadsheet? I can’t find any merge functions in either Excel or Outlook. I’ve seen elsewhere information about performing an e-mail merge from Word, but I don’t use Word as my e-mail editor.

I really don’t want to spend all night cutting & pasting these e-mail addresses into Outlook. Any suggestions?

Reply | Quote

Replies

This may not be what you wanted to hear but it can be done by copying the Excel addresses into your Outlook contacts folder.

Make sure each of your Excel data columns has a heading such as name, address, phone ….
Excel can be made to export the file as a CSV format under the ‘Save as’ tab.

Outlook can then be asked to Import this data
If your Contacts folder is full of other people start this process by creating a new Contacts2 folder to hold the contacts

Select File > Import and Export
In the wizard select import from another program or file
Select Comma Separated Values (Windows)
Browse for your created file
Select Contacts2 as your destination folder
Click on ‘Map Custom Fields’

Reply | Quote

(Edited by SamanthaMichael on 25-Oct-02 18:57. AARRGH!! [bouncenburn] It didn’t work!!! [censored])

Thanks, Andrew, for the speedy reply.

You’re right, in that I was hoping for an easy fix; but time is short & I have to work with the information I have. Your instructions on how to import the excel data into outlook will certainly cut out the most tedious part of the task of getting the members’ email addresses into a contacts list. I also like the idea of having this new contacts list separate from my regular list. It will be much easier to maintain if the complete list of members are kept separate from all the others with whom I correspond.

I’m still interested in finding a way to perform an e-mail merge from Excel, but realize I may not be able to do it in time for this emergency project.
——————————————
Help, please;

Andrew, I followed your instructions above, all went smoothly until I arrived at the last prompt in the import/export wizard to “Click on ‘Map Custom Fields'”

The choice to Map Custom Fields is greyed out, as is the “Next” button. I’m left hanging in the wizard with the only options to cancel or back up a step. I went back each step, double checking that I had made the correct choices the first time. I don’t see what I could have done differently.

I attempted to do this at work in Outlook 2002. In desperation, I’m sending both the original and the new .csv formatted spreadsheet home, and I’ll try tonight in Outlook 2000, in hopes that it will work under that version. — SMW

Reply | Quote

If you import the Excel spreadsheet into a new Outlook contact folder, you can set the properties on this folder to be visible as an address book. You can then select this when performing the merge in Word

Hope this helps

Reply | Quote

Do I need to designate Word as my email editor to do this?

Reply | Quote

Once you have the contacts in a contact folder you can select them all (Edit Menu | Select All) then choose Actions Menu | New email message. This will put all the contacts’s mail addresses in the “To” box. If you don’t want everyone to see all the addressees names you can cut them from the To box and paste them into the bcc box. But you’ll need someone’s name in the To box.

If you don’t see the bcc field you can expose it from the View menu in the open mail item.

Reply | Quote

No, you can merge to email with ought changing the default email editor
Hope this helps

Reply | Quote