How To Use Word's Mail Merge To Print Envelopes Video
Watch our video to learn how to use Microsoft Word's Mail Merge feature to print your own envelopes. We'll walk you through creating a template, entering or importing your addresses, setting up your printer driver, and finally, printing on an envelope.
Here are the steps to follow:
Open Word with a blank document.
Click Tools/Letters and Mailings/Mail Merge.
The Mail Merge task pane opens, guiding you through the rest of the process in 6 steps.
For step 1, select "Envelopes" as the document type, then continue by clicking "Next: Starting document."
For step 2, How do you want to set up your envelopes? Choose "Change document layout." Under that, click on Envelope options. Under envelope size, choose the size of your envelope. If your envelope size is not listed, enter a custom size in inches. Choose your desired fonts for the delivery address and the return address. Click "Next: Select Recipients."
In Step 3, choose your recipients either from a file or from your Outlook contacts, or you can type in your recipients one at a time within Word. To type in your recipients, click "Type a new list." Under "Type the names and addresses of recipients," click "Create." You can then create a new entry for each of your recipients. When you are finished typing in your recipients, you will be prompted to save it to a file.
If you already have a list of your recipients in a database, for example, an Excel file, you can select that by first clicking "Use an existing list" then "Browse." Then navigate to the location of your database file.
Once your recipients are in order, you can move on, click "Next: Arrange your envelope." This is Step 4 and here, you will actually set up a template for your envelope. You can replace the sample return address in the upper left corner with your return address. Then click on "Address block." A dialog box will appear where you can customize the way your addresses will be printed on your envelopes. When you have settled on a style, click "OK." You will see that the "Address Block" code is now in your template. Using the enter key, bring the Address Block to the middle of your envelope, and then center it by clicking the center alignment button in Word's toolbar.
When you are happy with your template, click "Next: Previous your envelopes" to move on to step 5.
You can now preview how the text on your envelopes will be printed. You can click the left and right buttons to move through your recipients and make sure all of their addresses will be correctly printed. You can also edit your recipient list and exclude specific recipients for this printing session. Once you are satisfied, click "Next: Complete the merge."
You've reached step 6, the final step, and you're ready to print your envelopes. This is the time to print on one envelope as a test. Insert one of your envelopes into your printer, or if you'd rather not waste a fine envelope for a test run, insert a piece of paper or card stock that you've cut to size to match the dimensions of your envelope. When you click "Print," a print dialog box will appear. Select your printer from the drop down list, then click properties. This will bring up your printer's driver where you will need to communicate to the printer that you are printing on an envelope. Do this by going to "Page Setup" and entering the dimensions of your envelope in inches like you did in Step 2 of Word's Mail Merge steps. Your printer's print driver layout will vary, so just poke around and try to find the place for customizing the dimensions of your document, in this case, your envelope.
Once you have set the printer to recognize the size of your envelope you are ready to print. Go ahead and send that test through. If your return address and recipient's address is positioned correctly on your envelope, you can go ahead and print the entire list. LCI Paper suggests that you load 20 envelopes into your printer at a time. When one batch of 20 envelopes print, your printer will pause so you can load more.
Recommended Links:
LCI Paper's How To video archive
Printing Your Own Invitations
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