About mail-merging

Mail-merging is the process of merging variable data and fixed\rtext.

Using mail-merging, you can create individualised letters,\renvelopes, labels and other documents without having to\rlaboriously create each individual one.

Mail-merging naturally fulfils one of the DfES¡¯s conditions of\rreducing the administrative burden on teachers, namely that\rwhen data is inputted into a computer system it should be\rright first time. One of the aspects of this principle is that\rcomputer data should not have to be re-entered in order to\rgenerate a different view of it.

Examples of mail-merging

The "right first time" principle can be illustrated by the\rnumber of different kinds of document that you could create\rusing one set of data consisting of school names and addresses\rand Head teachers' names:

Notification of funding allocations for anew financial year.

Invitation to a meeting.

Attendance registers for courses/conferences.

End-of-term letter.

Labels for conference packs.

Address labels for the envelopes.\rYou can even use the same set of data (if set up properly\rinitially) to send different letters to (for example):

Primary schools/secondary schools.

Schools that have/have not submitted their ICT Strategy.

Head teachers that are invited to a meeting on Monday, and\rthose invited to the meeting on Tuesday.\rAdvantages of mail-merging

It can save a lot of time over the long term.

Recipients often feel as if they have been given individual\rattention.\rDisadvantages of mail-merging

It can take a long time to set up initially, and so may not be\rworth it for a one-off job.

Recipients often feel as if they have been given individual\rattention. This is not always a good idea.

Terry Freedman runs the website http://www.ictineducation.org, on which he sells the Big Database, consisting of 1008 records and 23 fields -- ideal for practising mail-merging!