The familiar Word and more exotic Excel are combined in this project. Several days ago you were asked to create an Excel spreadsheet that contained three columns of address components and six rows of a header and five addresses. With that much practice behind you, it is possible to create a mass mailing of a newsletter or for a complete political campaign.
The basic steps to merging a Word document with data from Excel was demonstrated twice in class, so instructions will be very abbreviated here. There is a sample document that shows what the merged document looks like and a screen shot showing the spreadsheet from which the addresses were taken.
Start with your company's newsletter and either make a copy of it using the operating system and call it MailMerge.doc or open it with Word and save it as MailMerge.doc.
Make an Excel spreadsheet with the same name but a different extension (the last three letters), so MailMerge.xls.
In the spreadsheet make three or more columns and label the top cell in each column with text that describes part of an address (e.g., NameLine, StreeLine, CityLine).
Find addresses to use. Since there was just an election, it seems like a good idea to review how you can contact the politicians representing you. Track down addresses for
The Governor of Arizona
U.S. Senator 1 of Arizona
U.S. Senator 2 of Arizona
The President of the United States
One famous person of your choice
The last one probably represents your interests in a different way. If you already had other addresses, you can just add these. Insert these addresses into the spreadsheet. Each address should appear in a separate row with one of its parts in each column.
Arrange a mail merge in Word using names from the top cell in the used columns. This amounts to inserting fields with the proper names into the document. Be certain to save the version of the file, still called MailMerge.doc, with these fields.
Merge the documents into a new document and call it MailMerged.doc. This should be ten pages long or so with all the field names replaced by data from the spreadsheet. Be sure to double check that all the addresses were inserted properly.
You should have three files in the end: MailMerge.doc, MailMerge.xls, and MailMerged.doc. Attach all three to an email to your instructor and transfer the files via a USB drive. If for some reason you cannot attach multiple files to a single email message, zip the three files into one.
You can receive points for Word document, name, Excel document, name, merged Word document, name, column names (3), addresses (5), merge field names (3), merge, mail attachment(3).
The due date is specified on the projects page. Submissions prior to the end of class on the due date receive a 5% bonus. Projects submitted before 10pm are still on time, but not early, and afterwards they are late and receive a 10% late penalty. At 10pm the next day, the penalty increases to 20% and grows 10% with each additional day of delay.