Mail merge
When you run a mail merge in Word, dates from your Excel data source often change to the US month-day-year format like 04/12/2025 instead of your local format like 12 April 2025. This happens because Word treats date fields as raw numbers and applies its own default formatting during the merge. This article explains why … Read more
When you run a mail merge in Word and try to connect to an Excel workbook as the data source, you may see an error message that says Word cannot open the data source or cannot establish a connection. This problem usually happens because of a mismatch between the data provider used by Word and … Read more
You run a mail merge in Word to print address labels, but the text on each label does not line up with the label sheets. Addresses are shifted up, down, left, or right, and some text may be cut off at the label edges. This misalignment is almost always caused by a mismatch between the … Read more
When you run a mail merge in Word, some records may be skipped entirely if they contain blank fields. This happens because Word treats an empty merge field as a null value and skips the entire record to avoid printing incomplete data. The default behavior is controlled by the Omit Empty Fields setting in the … Read more
When you run a mail merge in Word using Outlook contacts as the data source, Word automatically uses your default Outlook profile. If you have multiple Outlook profiles, such as one for work and one for personal email, you may need to select a specific profile without changing your default Outlook settings. This article explains … Read more
When you run a mail merge in Word and try to save the result as a PDF, the default behavior creates one large PDF containing all records combined. This happens because the Save As PDF option in Word treats the merged output as a single document, not as separate files per recipient. You need each … Read more
When you run a mail merge in Word that pulls number fields from an English locale data source, the merged document often shows a comma in thousands positions. This happens even when the source data displays the number as a plain integer without any comma. The cause is a mismatch between how Word interprets the … Read more
When you use Word Mail Merge to generate letters, envelopes, or labels, the Address Block field inserts a formatted name and address from your data source. But sometimes you need the Address Block to show different information depending on a value in your data, such as showing a company name for business contacts and a … Read more
When you run a mail merge in Word and send emails through Outlook, the subject line sometimes displays raw field codes like {MERGEFIELD Subject} instead of the actual merged data. This problem occurs because Outlook interprets the subject field as plain text rather than executing the merge field instruction. The root cause is usually a … Read more
When you run a mail merge in Word, the default output is a single document with one page per record. Saving each record as a separate file with a custom filename pattern—such as “Invoice_12345_JohnDoe.docx”—requires a few extra steps. Word does not offer a built-in dialog to name merged files automatically. This article explains how to … Read more