Activity

Create an Access database to manage the club membership. At the moment we will only create a single table to record member details. Save your database with an appropriate name.

The word-processing document

Now create your main Word document with the following text:

Note: You are going to need to insert a symbol in order to add the scissors ().

If you are unsure how to do this, do a search in Google (eg how to add a symbol in word 2010).

Save this document as Member Letter 1.docx.

Linking to the database

At this point we have created the data source and the main document. The next step is to link them together.

Activity

Open Member Letter 1.docx.
Click on the Mailings Tab ⇒ Start Mail Merge ⇒ Select Recipients ⇒ Use Existing List.

The Select Data Source dialogue will appear. It works in the same way as the open or save dialogues.
Browse to your database. As there is only one table there, Word will automatically connect to the fields there.

If there were more than one table or a query then a dialogue box would appear allowing us to choose the correct table or query.
Go to the Write and Insert Fields group and click on the Insert Merge Field button - you should see a menu displaying all the fields that are contained in the database table.
Click in the line that contains Member Address Details and delete it - we are going to set up the address block for our letter.
From your Insert Merge Field menu choose OwnerFirstName. Press your space bar. Go back to the Insert Merge Field menu and choose OwnerSurname. You will have something that looks like the following:

Database fields are always displayed between marks called guillemots or angle quotes - « ». To complete the address details, insert the following:

Don’t forget to press Enter after fields to get down to the next line.
In the salutation “Dear Member” change “member” to the field «OwnerFirstName»
Complete the tear-off form in the rest of the letter as below. Make sure that you take care to format the letter appropriately.