OL97: How to Broadcast Mail Using Outlook (244142)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Outlook 97
This article was previously published under Q244142

SUMMARY

This article describes how to send broadcast mail. Broadcast mail is the same e-mail message body text sent to many different addresses, each as a separate message. Only one address appears in the To field and a single message is sent to each recipient.

MORE INFORMATION

Outlook does not include a method for sending broadcast mail; however, when used with the Microsoft Word mail merge feature, Outlook can broadcast mail to a group of contacts. Each recipient receives an individual message, addressed only to them.

Conducting a mail merge to e-mail addresses requires you to accomplish the following:
  1. Publish your Outlook Contacts as an e-mail address book, so that the e-mail addresses become available as data for a Word mail merge.
  2. Draft a Word document to serve as the body of your broadcast mail message.
  3. Conduct a mail merge to merge the contact data with your Word document. The key difference with this mail merge and others is that you set the "Merge Type" to "Form Letters" and the Merge options to Merge to "Electronic mail".

Using the Mail Merge Helper

Use the following steps in Word. With your Word document that contains the body of the message open, on the Tools menu, click Mail Merge, to start the Mail Merge Helper.

Main Document

  1. Click Create, and then click Form Letters.
  2. Click Active Window. This is your open document which contains the body of the message you want to merge.

Get Data

  1. Click Get Data, and then click Use Address Book.
  2. Click to select Outlook Address Book, and then click OK. The Outlook Address Book is your Outlook Contacts. If prompted for a profile, choose the profile that contains your contacts. If you do not have a choice of Outlook Address Book, see the article referenced in the REFERENCES, section to publish your contacts as an address book.
  3. Click to choose your Contacts folder, and then click OK.
  4. Click Edit Main Document.
  5. On the Mail Merge Helper toolbar, click Insert Merge Field and select a field. You must insert a field into the body of the document for the merge to work. A good rule of thumb is to use the person's name in a greeting.

Merge the Data with the Document

  1. On the Tools menu, click Mail Merge, to reopen the Mail Merge Helper.
  2. Under step 3 of the Mail Merge Helper, click Merge.
  3. In the Merge to list, click to select Electronic mail.
  4. Click Setup.
  5. In the Data field with mail/Fax address list, click to select EMail_Address.
  6. Type a subject for your e-mail message in the Mail message subject line box.
  7. Click OK, and then click Merge.

REFERENCES

For additional information about how to mail merge Outlook Contacts using your version of Outlook and Word, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

170538 OL97: How to Mail Merge from Outlook Contacts to Word 97

Modification Type:MajorLast Reviewed:7/31/2001
Keywords:kbhowto kbusage KB244142
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