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Even in case you used to know methods to use mail merge in Pages, it has been near a decade because the app would allow you to. The 2013 launch of Pages 5.0 killed off this beautiful important phrase processing function, however now the 2022 launch of Pages 12.1 has introduced it again.

There’s important and there is important. Chances are you’ll by no means even have seen the absence of mail merge in case you do not occur to want it.

However in case you do want it, in case your work could be made simpler by it, then the one factor worse than Apple omitting mail merge from Pages is that it used to do it simply positive.

Nonetheless, it does it positive once more now. So whether or not you are new to mail merge, desire a refresher in spite of everything this time, otherwise you’re intrigued to see what the fuss is about, this is what now you can do.

Notice that this works on Mac, iPhone and iPad. It requires Pages 12.1, which itself wants macOS Large Sur or later for the Mac, or iOS 14, iPadOS 14, or later, for the iPhone or iPad.

What mail merge does

It is a time period that’s someway self-explanatory solely when you already know what it means. There’s mail, proper, and then you definately merge issues with it.

What you merge is something like a reputation, handle, or every other contact element. You write one letter, otherwise you write one envelope, and inform Pages to print it out utilizing an inventory of names.

If the record has 400 names in it, Pages prints 400 letters. Extra usefully, every letter has a unique contact title, handle, or so on.

So what you want for mail merge is the record of names in some type, and the letter or envelope textual content you need these names inserted into.

Creating your record of names and addresses

You’ve got already achieved this. By default, Pages will use your present Contacts database for mail merge.

Utilizing Contacts for mail merge

That is once you’ll see simply how messy you have let your Contacts be. Over time you have added folks’s new cellular numbers with out eradicating the previous ones, and so forth.

Actually you need to go over your entire Contacts database and ensure it is updated, however you are by no means going to. So as an alternative, create a brand new group of individuals you are going to ship mail merged letters to.

In Contacts, select File, New Group, after which give that group a reputation. Then discover the folks you wish to add to it, and drag their contact card over to that group’s title.

Notice that sadly you possibly can’t use a Good Group right here, it must be an everyday group. So there is no technique to create a mail-merge group that you may routinely add to or take away from simply by, say, including or eradicating a tag.

At the least, although, any group you create is definitely going to have fewer names in it than the entire of your database. So it is a smaller quantity to undergo checking.

Utilizing Numbers for mail merge

Alternatively, you possibly can create a Numbers spreadsheet that you’re going to use within the mail merging. The benefit is that this is usually a group mail merge you are doing for another person, and the names do not have to enter your individual Contacts database for it to work.

It does must be a Numbers spreadsheet, not an Excel or CSV one.

In any other case, it is completely as much as you what you place in that sheet. First title, surname, work handle, or the rest can go in.

Utilizing Pages templates for mail merge

1. Open a Pages template on the Mac, corresponding to a Letter
2. Click on on the Doc icon
3. Scroll to the underside and choose Mail Merge
4. Click on on Merge… on the prime of the pane that seems
5. Select Contacts or Spreadsheet
6. For those who select Contacts, you possibly can choose a gaggle
7. For those who select Spreadsheet, it’s important to then discover that file
8. Click on Preview to see what’s going to occur
9. Whenever you’re pleased with the Preview, click on on Merge

Notice that even on Apple Silicon Macs, mail merging is a sluggish job. You will watch because the progress depend works by means of all of the contacts you need, however then it’ll sometimes seem to freeze as soon as it is received the lot.

That is regular and after some seconds, your one-page letter in Pages is now probably a number of hundred pages lengthy. Every web page having the identical letter, however totally different data.

The way to add mail merge fields

Apple’s Pages templates are very good, however you’ll have your individual that you just desire. Wherein case, it is advisable inform Pages which little bit of, say, the letter is to have the recipient’s title in.

Whether or not you do that in a completely clean new doc, otherwise you wish to add such a area to the present ones in template, the method is similar.

1. Place your cursor the place you need the sector to go
2. Open the Doc pane once more
3. Scroll down and click on Mail Merge
4. This time click on Add Merge Subject on the backside of the pane
5. Select a kind of area, i.e. Identify, E mail (Residence), and so forth.

That is now achieved. This new area is routinely highlighted within the Pages doc so you possibly can see the place you have positioned it.

You possibly can edit this or every other merge area by deciding on it, and there are two methods to do that. That’s, there are two so long as the Doc pane is open, and you’ve got clicked into the Mail Merge part.

When that is the case, you possibly can then simply click on in any a part of your letter the place you anticipate there to be a mail merge area. So you possibly can click on the place there’s an handle, for example, or simply after the phrase “Expensive…”.

There’s a much less pot-luck method, although. With that Doc pane open, the Mail Merge part reveals a vertical record of fields named as Telephone, Work handle, and comparable objects.

Click on on an entry in that record and you choose it, however you additionally spotlight the corresponding area in your letter.

Apple would not make it straightforward, simply simpler

It is clearly simpler now to make use of Apple’s built-in Pages mail merge function than it was. You used to must string collectively AppleScript workarounds, and hope.

However mail merge has historically been as a lot a complicated phrase processor function, because it has a helpful one. Everytime you’re compiling a doc from exterior database sources, it is easy to combine up your date.

But with care, and doubtless some apply, the brand new Pages mail merge function is as streamlined as it may be.