Word mail merge to pairs of people at a time - possible

January 10, 2006 12:04 PM

Can I use Word's mail merge functionality to send merged emails to pairs of people?

I would like to send emails to multiple pairs of people, and I would like them to both get the same message. I'm getting hung up on how to send the message to both Alan and Bob, where the message is sent to [e-mail] and [e-mail], so that they can select "reply all" to the message and speak with each other. I also need to send the message to Carl and Dave, and Eric and Frank, etc. etc.

So far, I've got an Excel file that has the following fields:
FirstName1 (Alan), FirstName2 (Bob), Email1 ([e-mail]), Email2 ([e-mail]), and Emails ("[e-mail], [e-mail]").

When I try to send the email from Word, I click on the "merge to email" button, and all appears to be fine. I'm expecting the email to get sent to both of the addresses in the Emails field of my spreadsheet. However, the messages don't appear to actually get sent, as I haven't received the test messages I've sent to myself, and they don't show up in my Outlook sent items.

Should I be using a different character in the "Emails" field to separate the two addresses? Neither a comma nor a semicolon has worked. What other solutions exist for a situation like this? I'm sending a note to some 450+ pairs, so an automated process is strongly preferred.

I'm running: Word 2002, Outlook 2002, Windows XP, Microsoft Exchange. I can try to answer any other questions about my setup that could help figure this out!

posted by Coffeemate to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

You should be able to set up the table so that you have name1 name2 email1 email2
Each person is in the list twice, as a name1 and a name2.

Dear name1
you are paired with name2

merges to
Dear theora55
you are paired with coffeemate
and
Dear coffeemate
you are paired with theora55

My pc is unwilling to send any merged email right now for no obvious reason, but I can try at my work pc tomorrow.
Getting the list rebuilt can be a pain, but is automate-able.
posted by theora55 at 5:24 PM on January 10, 2006

Response by poster: Thanks, theora55. That's not quite what I want to do.

I'm hoping that I can send a single message to each pair, addressed to them both:

to: Adam and Bob
from: Coffeemate
re: Foo

Dear Adam and Bob,
Blah blah blah.
Yours,
Coffeemate

The key for me is to get each member of the pair receiving the email at the same time, seeing that the other received it as well. I'm starting to think it can't be done!
posted by Coffeemate at 6:31 AM on January 11, 2006

I sent email to the account in your profile.
posted by theora55 at 9:10 AM on January 11, 2006