Hi Camille,

We use the mail merge feature all the time, and it's really pretty simple once you get the hang of it.  Obviously, you've got your database set up, and each field has a name, for example something like "Client Name" "Address" "City" etc...

Open up your text editor (probably Microsoft Word) and lay out your document.  For instance, we'll say you're laying out a letter that will go to a couple hundred people in your database.  So in the area where you would like to put the clients name and address, you'd type in the names of your fields, with tildes to denote that they should be pulled from your database. (You need to use underscores where there are spaces, otherwise it won't work)

Example:

~Client_First_Name~ ~Client_Last_Name~

~Address~

~City~, ~State~  ~Zip~

Dear Mr. ~Client_Last_Name~

etc. etc. etc....

When you upload that document as a template, with fields like that in it, you should get something out of your database that looks more like:

Mr. Bob Smith

1234 Anystreet

Anytown, TX 88017

Dear Mr. Smith,

etc. etc. etc.

Be sure you save your template as an rtf file when you're done laying it out.  This will be an option when you go to "Save As" in Word, and hit the drop down menu.  Upload that rtf file as a template, go to your database, view, or single record, hit mail merge, and you're off!

It's really very easy, and the best part is, you can use that document over and over again.  My company has templates for our standard letterhead, fax forms, and memos.  It's a cinch!

Roz