Trouble With Mail Merge

Question

My university recently updated its Outlook to 16.42 and I find I'm no longer available to do something that I was formerly able to do.  I'm trying to do a mail merge using a Word document containing a graphic letterhead and an Excel spreadsheet.  When I do the merge, the letterhead graphic comes across as an attachment instead of being embedded in the email as it was formerly.  Does anyone know of a way to have the graphic be embedded in the email the the recipients receive?

Beholden in advance,

fw

Answer 1

Hi Fred,

I tried to reproduce the scenario.

When I merge a Word document to email using HTML format, the graphic in the header does not come through at all.

Merge to email is sending to Outlook what you see in Word's Web Layout view. Web Layout View does not display header or footer content. My expectation is what you see in Web Layout View is what you should see when merging to HTML.

I recommend composing HTML mail using Word's Web Layout View. It's much more what you see is what you get than Print Layout.

Hey Jim,

That's very good to know (I feel a bit dim for not thinking of it).  I'll do that going forward.  My work around will be to create a header without a graphic but using the resources of fonts.

Thanks very much for helping me with this.

Best,

Fred

Answer 2

Hi Fred,

I tried to reproduce the scenario.

When I merge a Word document to email using HTML format, the graphic in the header does not come through at all.

Merge to email is sending to Outlook what you see in Word's Web Layout view. Web Layout View does not display header or footer content. My expectation is what you see in Web Layout View is what you should see when merging to HTML.

I recommend composing HTML mail using Word's Web Layout View. It's much more what you see is what you get than Print Layout.

Answer 3

HI fw

Office 2019 and 2016 should be identical when it comes to Mail Merge. Are you using the HTML option when merging email?

Hi JB,

Yes, I've verified that all my Outlook defaults as well as the setting on the mail merge in Word are HTML.  I've been through virtually every element I can control in both Outlook and Word and still no luck.  

Here's an even weirder thing.  What I'm trying to do it fairly simple.  I have a letter document in Word that contains text and three graphics: a letterhead, a signature, and a small photograph.  I merge it to email calling just two simple fields from an Excel spreadsheet--first name for the salutation and the email address to which to send.  When the emails arrive, in both Exchange and Gmail accounts, the header doesn't appear but the signature and the small photo do.  I've ruled out the message being sent as text (rather than HTML) at the level of either the client or the server.  Since two of three photos come across, I've ruled out a problem with embedded vs. linked images.  I've experimented with different graphics formats (.jpg, .jpeg, .png), and it doesn't seem to be that.  Very perplexing. 

Thanks is advance for any light you can shed.  Or even for just ruminating.

Best,

Fred

Answer 4

HI fw

Office 2019 and 2016 should be identical when it comes to Mail Merge. Are you using the HTML option when merging email?