Word 2011 for Mac: Making Labels by Merging from Excel

By Geetesh Bajaj and James Gordon from Office 2011 for Mac All-in-One For Dummies

You can use an Excel workbook as your Word 2011 mail merge data source in Office 2011 for Mac. Get ready by preparing an Excel workbook with a data range or table that’s set up as a mailing list and a new, blank document in Word.

To make labels from Excel or another database, take the following steps:

In the Mail Merge Manager, click Select Document Type and then choose Create New→Labels.
From the Label Products pop-up menu, choose the product.
From the Product Number list, select the correct number for your labels.
Click OK to close the Label Options dialog.

A table appears. Don’t make any adjustments to the table or click in the table. The insertion cursor should be blinking in the upper-leftmost cell, which will be the only empty cell in the table. You may have to drag the bottom scroll bar to see the blinking cursor. Section 1 of Mail Merge Manager now displays the name of the Main Document and which type of merge you’re performing.
In the Mail Merge Manager, click Select Recipients List and then choose Get List→Open Data Source.
Navigate to the Excel (.xlsx) workbook you’re using as the data source and click Open.
Select the worksheet or range that has the names and addresses for the data source, and then click OK.

Your Word mail merge document is now linked to the worksheet or data range data source in the Excel workbook. The Edit Labels dialog appears.
In the Mail Merge Manager, click Edit Labels.

When the Edit Labels dialog opens, you see an empty Sample Label with a blinking insertion cursor.
Click the Insert Merge Field pop-up menu and choose the field that will be on the left of the top row of the label.
To add more lines to your label, press Return or Enter and then select another field from the Insert Merge Field pop-up menu.

Do not click the Insert Postal Bar Code button. The U.S. Post Office changed how it generates postal bar codes, and Word doesn’t conform to the new specification.
Click OK to close the Edit Labels dialog.

You return to your Word document, and your table grid is now filled with a whole bunch of field names in chevrons. Step 3 of Mail Merge Manager opens, but don’t use anything from Mail Merge Manager Step 3 because the Edit Labels dialog takes care of inserting placeholders when making mail merge labels. Step 2 of Mail Merge Manager now shows the filename of the data source document.
(Optional) In the Mail Merge Manager, click Filter Recipients.

Filter data and order records.
In the Mail Merge Manager, click Preview Results.
In the Mail Merge Manager, click Complete Merge.

You’re done!