creating an address database

Question

I had an address database for years in Word that was lost in a hard drive crash. I am trying to recreate the database in Word 2016 and follow the 'help' instructions, but the commands listed are not those that appear in the application and once I have entered records, they are not accessible to edit or create additional records. In fact, there is no longer a database toolbar available, as I once used to access the data source. Does this mean I should now use another component of Office to create my database or am I simply not finding the correct instructions? Please help! I am trying to send Christmas cards!

Answer 1

I did some research on my own and have finally begun recreating my address database as contacts in Outlook.  I entered approximately 50 contacts with addresses and was able to figure out how to merge those contacts into Word to create mailing labels in a test run. The problems I had creating the database in Word was that it was attached to a document and I could not move it from my laptop (where I had begun) to my desktop to continue, because the data source would not move with the file. I also had difficulty editing in Word and as my address book is a constantly evolving data source, that was not helpful. Thank you for your replies.

Answer 2

I would suggest that you create the list in an Excel Workbook and then use that Workbook as the datasource for the mail merge that I assume that you ultimately want to perform.

Simply insert names for each field into the cells of the first row and then enter the details for each party into the corresponding cells of the rows below.

Answer 3

Hi SuzanneCole2,

Did you check above reply? Do you still need help?

Regards,

Neha

Answer 4

Hi SuzanneCole2,

Do you want to create database for mail merge? If so, Word can pull data from a variety of data sources to perform mail merge.

For detail steps on how to create data source for mail merge, please see Create a data source for a mail merge

If something is misunderstood, please correct me.

Thanks,

Neha