We need more prizes so that nearly everyone wins something! If the basic ticket price is $10.00 and we have a huge number of even $10.00 prizes, people feel good about winning something and buy again next year. Tickets become easy to sell. Easy sales is good.

 

To energize sales we can send out tickets this week and people have time to mail back their entries before the parade.  To do a mail merge in MS Word: 

Step 1:

Save this table into your machine and fill it in with the names and details of your contacts that might buy raffle tickets:

First	Last	Street	City	St	Zip	Area	Tele

 

Step 2:

 

Write your letter like the ones Jim sent out in his e-mail of 8/17/22. Note the 'fields' that have << >> around them such as <<First_Name>>  etc.  Those correspond to the column in the table called "First" above.  When you have your letter open in Word, on the top bar find the tab called "Mailings" and click it to reveal what should look like this:

 

     

 

You should see something like this:

 

 

 

In this screen you should click step by step mail merge wizard. You will see this:

 

 

You will then click the bullet as shown for letters and then next at the lower right. It now wants to know what letter  to use. select this one on your screen by selecting the bullet shown and click "next" at the lower right when you have done that, as shown below.

 

 

Now we select recipients. This can be done by browsing to the file where you stored them on your computer by clicking the top bullet on the right and then the "Browse under that section of the Wizard. When you do that you will see something like this:

 

 

Please browse to where you saved your list of adressees on your machine now in this panel and click on it. Click Open in the window. It will appear in the file name at the bottom when you do as shown below:

 

 

Note to be usable, your data table can not have notations at the top as the sample does. There should be NOTHING, not even extra spaces, between the top margin and the start of the table.

It must look like this:

 

 

I took my original and added the word 'new' to the name of the file when I saved it after adding my recipient Mr Forrest Gump in case something goes wrong. 

Then you will associate the fields in the letter with the fields in the table of adressees. This appears in a table like this below:

 

 

 

The path to my file is stupidly long on the left side of the chart but yours might not be.  you may need to use the arrow by hovering the cursor over the outer edge of the dropdown box to make it wider to read and confirm each recipient is correct, but you can do that here before wasting any paper. Notice we have  fields that are in the table that are unused in the letter such as telephone number and area code. Just make sure there are no fields in the letter that have no entries in the table. Some merge letters in the past have had nick names, such as when we call someone "Bud" when their name is William or something else. To follow our simple form here just enter Bud as their first name if that is more clear than their actual name. There is an "if then" function available but the hours it would take to make it work are beyond the added value it provides. The same applies to Mr. Ms. and Mrs. functions. 

 

 

At this point go ahead and cusomize your letter. Then click Next in the lower right hand corner of the wizard box.

Now you are at Step 4 Preview your whole letter (and all of them.) Click that Next preview your letter link. It will run through the first row of data as it sees it. 

 

 

 

Here we have the machine complaining that the table we used said "First" and the letter we used calls for a field to fill from the table called "First Name." This is easily fixed without doing anything to either the table or the letter. You could go to either and change it to make it consistent with the other. You replace the reference by clicking OK in the objection box.  The repllacement can be adjusted in the third box down from the top by clicking the small v and scrolling to the proper choice. Once you have gone through all of the fields in your letter a draft will be displayed all filled in. Check your spacing between words. That is the most common problem with the merge is that first and last name will be jammed togeter without a space between or the name will be jammed up tight to the greeting. This is fixed by adding a space to the letter template form and it goes in before or after the << or the >> symbols. WHen your drafts look good, click the link in the wizard to complete the merge. 

 

I suggest that you next print to a .pdf and save it to your desktop in case something goes wrong like you run out of letterhead in the printing. You do that by clicking File in the top ribbon on your screen. Scroll down pastHome, New Open Info Save Save As, and Save as PDF to Print. Your screen should look something like this when you click next to the printer: Be sure your appropriate printer has the green check as your default printer so you can get it back easily. Pick Microsoft print to PDF and save the file so you can reopen it after we make your envelopes.  

 

 

 

your other option is to use the wizard to merge to the printer directly and have the printout right away. You can edit individual letters in that way too.

 

 

TO MAKE YOUR ENVELOPES:

Repeat the same process. Use a teplate as shown below instead of the letter for the envelope. It is a number 10 envelope the left margin is 4" and the top margin is 2".

 

 

With this you can use the preprinted letterhead and feeed it through your laserprinter. Otherwise you cam print labels.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is our Speaker Calendar for the immediate future.