This guide is one for the beginners. However, it will make a nice reference to those that rarely use labels. If you’re like me, you only use them often enough to be able to forget how you did it last time.

This guide assumes that you have Excel and Word, and that you have an Excel file with information that you would like to sort into labels. Let’s take a look at your Excel file first.

Mail merge works by analyzing your Excel data. It recognizes the first row(usually “A”) as the heading, and all information below it as the data relating to each heading.

Example. Cell A1 might have the heading of “First Name”. Below are Bob, Tom, Scott, Adrienne, etc. While doing a mail merge you might tell Word to place the data from “first name” on each label. So in order to do this, you will need to make sure that your headings are lined up in the first row, and all of the data relating to each heading is placed in the columns directly beneath them. If you have headings for other information in other rows or directly below any other heading, you are going to have trouble.

Now that we have it saved, lets move on to our guide.

1. Open Word.

2a. If you have an earlier version than Office 2007, you will find the Mail Merge Wizard in Tools>Letters and Mailings. Go there and select the Mail Merge Wizard, then jump to step 3.

2b. If you have Office 2007 you will find the Mail Merge Wizard in Mailings>Start Mail Merge

3. You will now have a wizard pane to the far right. Start by telling it that you want labels.

4. Click “Next” and then “Label Options” A box will pop up telling you to select your label type. By default, Word has most label types. You may have to install from a disk if you have labels that Word doesn’t recognize. Click OK when done.

5. You should now choose the location of where your data is located, so choose “Use Existing List”. Hitting next will bring up a browser window. Use it to find your Excel file, then hit OK. If your file contains multiple sheets, you might need to repeat this guide for each. If so, select the first sheet.

The next box to pop up will allow you to sort, filter, and remove any of the information contained in your Excel file. Click the header at the top of each column to choose sort and filter options. You can also manually remove data by removing the check mark from beside the content. Hit OK to leave the window, then hit “Next”.

6. You will now arrange the layout of your labels. The wizard can automatically format the data as an address block or greeting line. To do this select “Address Block”.

To tell Word where to place your date you will need to match the fields. Select “Match Fields”.

A new box will pop up. This box contains all the information that typically appears in an address block, with drop down lists next to each. Here you will select which header goes in it’s place. So if you have a header in your excel file called “First Name” you would probably want to select that from the list next to “First Name”(though you could put any data there).

When you have told Word where to place your information, hit OK, and then “Update All Labels”.

7. Click “Next” and you should now see a preview of your labels. If all looks well, then click “Next” to complete the mail merge. You will now have two options. You can either edit your labels, or print them.

Helpful? Other ideas? Let us know in the comments.