How to mail merge from Excel to Word
To mail merge from Excel to Word, connect your spreadsheet to a Word document, insert a merge field wherever a value changes, then merge. Word's Mailings tab does this with merge fields; RowDraft does it by reading a document you've already filled out once and turning that person's details into fields for you.
Option 1: Word's built-in Mail Merge
- Make sure your spreadsheet has one header row (Name, Address, …) and one row per person.
- In Word, open your document and go to Mailings → Start Mail Merge → Letters.
- Click Select Recipients → Use an Existing List, and pick your Excel file and sheet.
- Delete a value that changes (like the person's name), then click Insert Merge Field and pick the matching column. Repeat for every value.
- Click Preview Results to check a few rows.
- Click Finish & Merge → Edit Individual Documents to create the merged document.
Word has mail merge built in. It works well for simple letters and labels once you know where everything is.
Where Word's mail merge gets painful
Numbers and dates often come through wrong — $1,250.00 turns into 1250, and dates show up in a different format — unless you add field codes.
Everything merges into one long document. Saving each person as their own named file needs a macro or an add-in.
Wording that changes by row (a company vs. a person, his vs. her) needs IF fields, which are easy to break.
Every template has to be rebuilt field by field, and it's hard to hand off to someone else.
Option 2: Mail merge without setting up fields (RowDraft)
- Upload your Excel or CSV file. Each row will become one document.
- Upload a Word document you've already filled out for one of those rows (.docx, or an older .doc).
- RowDraft finds that row's details in the document — names, addresses, amounts — and offers to link them. Click Link all.
- Anything it didn't catch, highlight it in the document and pick the column it comes from.
- Preview any row, then generate Word documents — one at a time, or every row at once on the Pro and Business plans.
RowDraft starts from a document you've already filled out for one person, so there is nothing to build from scratch.
Tips for a clean merge
Keep one header row and no merged cells in the spreadsheet.
Store amounts and dates as real numbers and dates in Excel — RowDraft keeps the formatting you see in Excel, like $1,250.00 or October 1, 2026.
Use a document you've really filled out, not a blank form. It lets RowDraft see what goes where.
Try it with your own spreadsheet
Free to start. No credit card. There's a ready-made sample if you want to look around first.
Start freeQuestions
- Can I mail merge from Excel to Word without Word's Mailings tab?
- Yes. RowDraft reads your spreadsheet and a filled-in Word document and creates one Word document per row, without merge fields. Try it free — no credit card, 10 documents a month on the Free plan.
- Why does my mail merge lose the currency or date format?
- Word reads the raw value from Excel, not the formatted one. You can fix it with a field switch like \# "$#,##0.00", or use a tool like RowDraft that keeps Excel's formatting.
- Does it work with Google Sheets?
- Yes — download the sheet as .xlsx or .csv (File → Download) and upload that.