Word – how to mail merge many records to individual documents

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I use Microsoft Word’s mail merge feature often.

It works great for connecting into a database and spitting out all sorts of documents – but it’s kind of clunky when it comes to multiple records.

Word only lets you:

  • merge and save each record individually
  • or as one combined document

but neither are great options when you need to create hundreds of letters or contracts.

Fortunately there’s an answer to this, using the individual merge letters add-in by Graham Mayor.

With it you can take mail merge with multiple records and merge each record to individual documents.

How to install MMtoDocs

  1. Go to Graham Mayor’s website and download the add-in at the bottom of the page
  2. The add-in comes in a ZIP file with two options to install it – run a program to install OR manually copy to the Word start up folder

INSTALL METHOD 1: Running the installer (recommended)

  1. Inside the ZIP file – run the MMtoDocs file and follow the prompts
  3. You may have to allow the file to run

INSTALL METHOD 2: Manually copy add-in to Word startup folder

  1. Open up File  Explorer and go to the following address by copying and pasting it into the address bar
  2. %appdata%\Microsoft\Word\Startup
  4. In the ZIP file you’ll find a file called ‘MMtoDocs Ver #.#.dotm’
  5. Copy the file into the startup folder

How to use MMtoDocs

  1. Once installed you’ll have a new set of options in the ‘Mailings’ ribbon menu tab
  2. These are ‘Split the Merge’ and ‘Reset’ under ‘Individual Merge Letters’
  4. Open your mail merge document that is connected to the datasource (which can be any normal data source, e.g. a database or Excel document)
  5. Make sure you have more than one record selected – when you open ‘Edit Recipient List’ you should see multiple records 
  7. Now click on the ‘Split the Merge’ button
  9. Click ‘All records’
  11. The settings window will load
  12. Select the field to use for each file name and use the ‘Browse’ button to choose where to save each file
  14. Click ‘Continue’ when ready to create your individual mail merge documents
  15. Each record will be saved to its own document in the folder you selected