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Carl_61's avatar
Carl_61
Iron Contributor
Dec 19, 2024

Mail Merge to Email Addresses

Need some help.  I am using Excel as a data source and created word document templets for mail merging.  With in the data source I have for columns for entering email addresses.

 

Personal Email address

Work Email Address

Supervisor Email Address

Section Email Address

Combined Email Address

 

When I need to send an email to an individual that also needs to go out to all the emails, I have joined the email addresses together using the following formula and have the combined email addresses in a column called Combined.

=LET(email,TEXTJOIN("; ",TRUE,T3:U3,AS3:AT3),IF(email="","",HYPERLINK("mailto:"&email,email)))

This works with no issues and am able to click on a combined email line and it launches the email program and drops the line of EMAIL ADDRESSES into the email TO: location.

 

The issue I need help with, if possible, is the interaction with the combined email and word mail merge.  When I try to do the mail merge and select the Combined Email Address column, word gives me an error,

"Microsoft Outlook does not recognize " the list of combined email addresses". 

Is there a way for outlook to recognize the combined email addresses during the merge?

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Carl

  • Mail merge to email does not recognize multiple email addresses.

    A workaround is to create a data source with a record (row) for each email address.

    • Carl_61's avatar
      Carl_61
      Iron Contributor

      Thanks for the idea.  I am just not tracking on what you are saying nor how that works. I guess I'm kind a lost with this idea.

      Can you offer me a better idea or an example of what you are saying

       

      Carl

      • From original layout:

        to a layout suitable for mail merge to email:

        With more columns, of course.

  • Carl_61's avatar
    Carl_61
    Iron Contributor

    I was hoping for a different result but I get it.  I currently have individual records with individual email addresses for emails I stated here in.  This gives me 4 separate columns plus the combined column of email addresses.  I am doing a mail merge to all the personal emails, then a merge to work emails and so on.  Is this what you are saying as the work around? It would be nice if this functionality was part of a future version.  

     

    Carl

    • Using 4 separate mail merges is one option.

      Another is to use formulas to return as many copies of a row as non-empty email addresses in that row, and populate one column with those email addresses. So for example if the original source has a private email address and a work email address, you'd create two copies of the row, with the personal address in one row and the work address in the other.

      But I guess that 4 mail merge runs is easier in the end.

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