How To Use Word's Mail Merge To Print Envelopes Video

Watch our video to learn how to use Microsoft Word's Mail Merge feature to print your own envelopes. We'll walk you through creating a template, entering or importing your addresses, setting up your printer driver, and finally, printing on an envelope.

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Here are the steps to follow:

Open Word with a blank document.

Click Tools/Letters and Mailings/Mail Merge.

The Mail Merge task pane opens, guiding you through the rest of the process in 6 steps.

For step 1, select “Envelopes” as the document type, then continue by clicking “Next: Starting document.”

For step 2, How do you want to set up your envelopes? Choose “Change document layout.” Under that, click on Envelope options. Under envelope size, choose the size of your envelope. If your envelope size is not listed, enter a custom size in inches. Choose your desired fonts for the delivery address and the return address. Click "Next: Select Recipients.”

In Step 3, choose your recipients either from a file or from your Outlook contacts, or you can type in your recipients one at a time within Word. To type in your recipients, click "Type a new list." Under "Type the names and addresses of recipients," click "Create." You can then create a new entry for each of your recipients. When you are finished typing in your recipients, you will be prompted to save it to a file.

If you already have a list of your recipients in a database, for example, an Excel file, you can select that by first clicking "Use an existing list" then "Browse." Then navigate to the location of your database file.

Once your recipients are in order, you can move on, click "Next: Arrange your envelope." This is Step 4 and here, you will actually set up a template for your envelope. You can replace the sample return address in the upper left corner with your return address. Then click on "Address block." A dialog box will appear where you can customize the way your addresses will be printed on your envelopes. When you have settled on a style, click "OK." You will see that the "Address Block" code is now in your template. Using the enter key, bring the Address Block to the middle of your envelope, and then center it by clicking the center alignment button in Word's toolbar.

When you are happy with your template, click "Next: Previous your envelopes" to move on to step 5.

You can now preview how the text on your envelopes will be printed. You can click the left and right buttons to move through your recipients and make sure all of their addresses will be correctly printed. You can also edit your recipient list and exclude specific recipients for this printing session. Once you are satisfied, click "Next: Complete the merge."

You've reached step 6, the final step, and you're ready to print your envelopes. This is the time to print on one envelope as a test. Insert one of your envelopes into your printer, or if you'd rather not waste a fine envelope for a test run, insert a piece of paper or card stock that you've cut to size to match the dimensions of your envelope. When you click "Print," a print dialog box will appear. Select your printer from the drop down list, then click properties. This will bring up your printer's driver where you will need to communicate to the printer that you are printing on an envelope. Do this by going to "Page Setup" and entering the dimensions of your envelope in inches like you did in Step 2 of Word's Mail Merge steps. Your printer's print driver layout will vary, so just poke around and try to find the place for customizing the dimensions of your document, in this case, your envelope.

Once you have set the printer to recognize the size of your envelope you are ready to print. Go ahead and send that test through. If your return address and recipient's address is positioned correctly on your envelope, you can go ahead and print the entire list. LCI Paper suggests that you load 20 envelopes into your printer at a time. When one batch of 20 envelopes print, your printer will pause so you can load more.

Josh avatar

Joshua Birch

Tags: envelopes, printing tips, video

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5 comments

§ Jaun R. Robinson said on : 02/27/09 @ 19:59
Hi Joshua,

I am wondering how do you print the return address on the back of the envelope?

The Mail Merge Print Envelopes Video is great.

Thanks.
§ Sabina Rosenfeld said on : 02/28/09 @ 14:46
Thank you so much for posing this video. I struggled with this issue when I did a large invitation list 2 years ago and this would have been great.

P.S. Although I'm not in the market for any invitations at the moment, I love the LCI catalog.
§ Barry Levine® said on : 03/04/09 @ 17:55
With regard to printing return addresses on the back flap of envelopes, there are a various number of ways to accomplish this task. The use of any desktop layout or word processor can be helpful. If one wishes to incorporate it during an actual mail merge, you would simply insert a text box with the appropriate return address into the document being created during the mail merge. Remember that if your intention to is to print the backflap at the same time as you are printing your addresses, you will need to consider feeding the envelopes through your printer with the flap extended. Depending on the type of printer that you have, this may or may not be advisable. The alternative to extending the flap is to pass the envelope through on a second run, or to actually do the return address as corner copy on the front of an envelope. The bottom line is that there are a number of different ways to accomplish printing return addresses on your outer envelopes. The choice you make will depend on your individual preferences and printer environment. I hope this information proves to be helpful.
§ Ann Gusfield said on : 12/20/09 @ 12:12
Hi Joshua
I liked your video but I have a question. My organization recently went to online procedures for joining/renewing. When I exported the list of members to excel I noticed that there were no fields for first and last names just member names. Also there is no field for zipcode. Is this going to be a problem when I want merge to print envelopes with members names and addresses? Thanks for your help. Ann
§ Barry said on : 12/22/09 @ 17:17
Dear Ann - If I understand you correctly, although your export of member names may only contain one field name for the first and last name, that should not be an issue. You will simply have one less variable to call out during your setup of the format. The same holds true for the address line. Again, I am interpreting your message to say that the zip code is part of the city, state and zip code variable. You will only call that variable name out as a single field instead of formatting for 3 separate field names (city state zip). I hope this information is useful to you. You seem to be headed on the right path.