How to Create Greeting Line in Word

Aug 23, 2020 · 5 minute read

When you create a mail merge in order to send your desired Emails, you should do some steps, one of these steps is creating a Greeting line;

In this article, we are going to explain how to create a Greeting line in Word 2010 and 2019 and how to create a condition using the rules option in Word 2010 and how to correct miss-match fields in word 2019.

How to Create Greeting Line in Mail Merge in Windows

Word 2010

  • What is the Greeting Line in the Word

One of the most important and useful features in Microsoft Word software is the mailing tab. You may like to send a letter to a group of people with a specific format. The greeting line option in Word software helps you to send a greeting phrase to your recipients.

Using the mailing feature in Microsoft Word is very useful for personalizing newsletters or statements because you do not have to enter the name or address of each person specifically at the top of each document.

  • Where is the Greeting line in the Word?

The Mailing tab in Word software contains 5 sections:

  1. Create: This includes Envelopes and Labels that you can use to create envelopes and labels.

  2. Start mail merge: includes tools for determining the type of document and creating a list of recipients and editing them.

  3. Write & Insert fields: Includes tools for adding different fields to the document and using rules.

  4. Preview Results: Includes tools for previewing the document.

  5. Finish: The final part of the post integration used for printing.

When you prepare a text, you must put the fields you specified for each person in the document file. Place the cursor where the fields should be named. You need to click on the mailings tab and go to the Write and insert section. There is the Greeting line option.

greetingline in word

Then you have four options:

  1. The Address block: Using this option, you do not need to specify individual merge fields such as first name, last name, their postal address, city, state, province, zip code. All of these integration sections are included in the Address Block part.

  2. The Greeting line: Use this option to select the greeting words such as Dear or To without the need to type. You can specify how official this name is. Using this option, we can add a greeting line to the letters.

insert greetingline mailingtab word

  1. Electronic postage: Electronic mail

  2. Insert Merge Fields: Using this option, you can insert any item you want in the document. This is your choice. For example, if you want to enter the title, first name, last name and national code (ID).

How to Create a Condition Using the Rules Option in Word 2010

You can apply different conditions by using the Rules option in the Mailings tab in Word. If you want to apply the condition you need to do the following steps:

  1. From the Mailing tab, select Rules.

  2. Click on the If… Then… Else rule.

  3. A window will open. In the Field name field, select the Title option.

  4. In the Compare to field, type the phrase (Mr.).

  5. Enter for example a number in the Insert in text field.

  6. Enter another number in the Otherwise insert this text field.

rules option in word

Note: First, the cursor must be exactly where you want the text or number to be.

By clicking on the Insert Merge Field option, you can select the required items according to the list you have completed. To select it, you need to select one of the fields. You will see the text in the place where the mouse pointer was located.

Word 2019

Sometimes you need to send E-mail or letters to different people which you have in your list with the fixed content but you need to change only some items in your letter.

Here we are going to explain how to add a title for each letter automatically.

1- Select the title of the letter and delete it.

2- In the Mailings tab click on the Greeting Line.

greetingline mailingtab word

3- In the Insert Greeting Line choose your desired prefix for the receiver of the letter.

insert greeting line dialoge title

4- Choose your desired name format.

5- Choose your desired punctuation.

insert greeting line dialoge name format

6- In the “Greeting line for invalid recipient” names, choose your desired sentence which the program will show if it can not find the names of the recipient in the Address Block.

You can also write your desired sentence here.

insert greeting line dialoge greetingline for invalid recipient name

7- In the “Preview section” you can see how greeting line appear in each letter or Email and you can check all of them to be assured everything is correct.

insert greeting line dialoge preview

8- Click Ok.

insert greeting line dialoge

Here you can see that names of recipients were added in all letters or Emails.

greetingline word

How to Correct Miss Match Fields

Sometimes you expected in the greeting line see the name of a person who will be received your Email or letter but in the preview part, you see other text.

For solving this problem you can follow one of these methods

First Method

1- Click on the “Match Fields…”.

insert greeting line dialoge word

2- In the “Required for Greeting Line” part you may have wrong data.

For instance, here we have an email address but correct items are first and last name.

match fields dialoge

3- Click on the arrow and choose the correct item.

match fields dialoge required for greeting line

In the “Preview” part, you can check “greeting line” to be sure that the correct items were chosen or not.

insert greeting line dialoge preview corect name

Second part

Sometimes in the Address Block for that person did not insert name or last name.

Or you do not have those fields for your items in the list, in this situation you can follow these steps;

1- Click on the “Match Fields…”.

2- Click on the arrow and choose “not matched”.

match fields dialoge not matched

match fields dialoge ok

3- Here you can have in your letter the fix sentence like “Dear Sir or Madam,” which you added it in the “Greeting line for invalid recipient names”.

insert greeting line dialoge greetingline for invalid recipient name ok

word mail merge