How to Do Mail Merge from Google Sheets to Word Documents?

Some users may have difficulty with mail merging. Therefore, in this article, I will explain how you can easily mail merge from Google Sheets to Microsoft Word using six simple steps.

What is Mail Merge?

Mail merge is a powerful tool to create personalized documents like letters, invoices, or labels. It uses a Microsoft Word template with a dataset from Google Sheets. The purpose of using this is to automatically generate hundreds of customized documents without manually creating each one.

Many organizations use Google Sheets to store and organize data. Because the sheets are cloud-based, many can easily share and collaborate in real-time. Whereas Microsoft Word is used for creating professional documents like reports, letters, etc., with advanced editing and design features.

Why Use Mail Merge?

Mail merge is an efficient way to create personalized documents in batches. Without this feature, you will have to manually edit each file. Therefore, many businesses use this for several reasons.

• Manually creating or editing hundreds of personalized letters, certificates, or invitations is very time-consuming. To reduce your time, mail merge offers you an automated process where you have to create only one template, and then you can fill in the details in a Word document using Google Sheets.
• It also allows you to add a personal touch to every document. The personalized message improved engagement and professionalism.
• There is also a risk of mistakes. When you are manually copying and pasting data from Google Sheets to Word. You may potentially make mistakes. To avoid that mail merge pulls data from your sheet to the Word document directly. keeping every record accurate.
• Mail merge can be used in many documents, like business letters, proposals, mailing labels, envelopes, certificates, event invitations, and email campaigns.

Therefore, mail merge is very helpful if you want to know how to mail merge from Google Sheets to Microsoft Word. I will explain its proper steps.

What Do You Need Before Mail Merge?

Before you start the procedure of mail merge. You have to do these things for the smooth merging process.

• In MS Word, first create a document with placeholders like <Name> or <Address> to mark where you want the data.
• Also, properly edit the layout and formatting of your template.
• Then, prepare your Google Sheet that contains all the data you want to merge.
• Make sure the first row contains clear column headers that match the placeholders in your Word document.
• Some users save their Google Sheets in their cloud storage, i.e., Google Drive. Move the file from the cloud platform so that you can do a mail merge.
• Also, you must have a basic understanding of Word’s mail merge feature to create the personalized documents.

After following them, I will go straight to the steps to mail merge. The process can be complicated. For easy understanding, I divided the process into six simple steps. Properly follow them.

Step 1: Prepare Google Sheets

The first thing you have to do in the process is to prepare your Google Sheets that you are going to use for mail merge. Here, you have to correct the structure and format. Then, save it to the CSV file. Below are the steps that you must follow.

1. Open the Google Sheet you want to merge into Word. Then, correct the data structure.
2. The first row of the sheets must be your column headers. This serves as a merge field in Word.
3. Provide a simple and descriptive name with no special characters. For example, FirstName, LastName, EmailAddress.
4. Every row below the header should be a single record for the mail merge. If you are sending a letter, then each row should contain all the information for one recipient.
5. Make sure all your data is in one single sheet. Remove any extra sheets, notes, or blank rows to minimize the confusion.
6. Whichever format of data you want to appear in Word, ensure the information is in the same format in the Google Sheets.
7. Break up the information into individual columns. Such as, separate FirstName, LastName for personal greetings, or divide the address into StreetAddress, City, State, and ZipCode.

Step 2: Save Google Sheets to Desktop

After you have properly formatted your data in Google Sheets. Now you have to download. Because mail merge cannot access the cloud file, your first must be in your local storage.

1. Open the Google Sheets that you have just formatted.
2. Click on the File option at the top left corner.
3. Select the Download button from the drop-down list.
4. Choose Microsoft Excel (.xlsx) and download the file to your desktop.

Step 3: Create a Mail Merge in Microsoft Word

Now, I am going to explain how you can create the mail merge. Below are the steps that you may need.

1. Launch MS Word and create a new document or open an existing document.
2. In the Menu bar, go to the Mailings button.
3. Click on the Star Mail Merge button. Choose the document type you are generating.

Step 4: Connect Excel File with Word

After creating the mail merge, you have to link your Word file with the file that you have just downloaded.

1. In the Mailing tab, click on the Select Recipients option.
2. Click on the Existing List button. Browse the Excel file.
3. After that, click on Edit Recipient List to sort your data (if needed).

Step 5:Insert Merge Fields in Document

1. Place the cursor where you want to add the information.
2. Click on the Insert Merge Field button.
3. Select the column header from your sheets.
4. To add other information, repeat the steps.

Step 6: Finish Merge Process

After you have successfully merged the documents, follow the steps below to finalize the procedure.

1. To see how the document looks, click on preview Results.
2. After confirming your documents, click on the Finish & Merge button.
3. Choose any one options: Edit individual Documents, Print Documents, and Send Email Messages.

This is the complete process of mail merge from Google Sheets to Microsoft Word, from preparing your Google Sheets to reviewing the mail merge. You can easily do your job. But what if your Google Sheets is stored in your Google Drive and you are not able to mail merge? One of the users is in this situation and doesn’t know how to do it.

I created my customer contact list in Google Sheets and stored it in Google Drive. Now, I want to use this contact list to create a personalized letter in Microsoft Word. I am using mail merge for this. However, my file is in Google Drive, and I don’t know if I can do a mail merge. Can you help me?

Move Google Drive Sheets to Word [User Scenario]

Professionals, mostly, save their important files, like Google Sheets, in Google Drive for security. But to do a mail merge, you need your data in your local storage. If you have Google Sheets in your Drive application, then you have to move them.

This SysTools Google Drive to OneDrive Migration Tool would be great for you. Here, you can easily transfer your Sheets from Google Cloud to Microsoft and then. Download your migrated file into your local storage to do a mail merge from Google Sheets to Microsoft Word. It is very easy to use and can help you when you are not capable of getting your sheets from Google Drive.

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Last Words

If you want to know how to mail merge from Google Sheets to Microsoft Word, then follow the steps mentioned in this article. In this, I explain how beneficial it is to use mail merge. Then, provide all the points to follow before the process. Lastly, I have addressed a user query about using mail merge when your Google Sheets are in the Drive.