Mail Merge from Word to Outlook (New) does not work - any ideas ?

Question

Hi

I am attempting to carry out a mail merge from Word into the new Outlook. Everything is going well until I press the "finish and merge" button, I type in a subject line and press "ok"

I go into Outlook and nothing comes up in the sent Outlook folder, strangely the Word document freezes and from there nothing happens I closed down the PC, restarted the PC went through the entire process again and still the same thing happens

Has this happened to anyone else and if so what did you do to get around the issue?

Thanks

Answer 1

The "New Outlook" is just a re-badged version of Windows Mail, which also did not support merging to Email.

As a result, the introduction of the "New Outlook" is just the latest of Microsoft's SNAFUs

If you have the toggle at the top right of the Outlook WIndow, use that to turn off the "New Outlook"

If you do not see the toggle to turn off the new Outlook, you can cause it to be displayed by

Open Registry Editor using regedit command in RUN dialog box or Start Search box.

Go to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\Preferences

Select the UseNewOutlook key and then click on Edit and then Modify and change the Value data from 0 to 1

1. Go to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\Options\General

1. In right-side pane, create a new DWORD with the name HideNewOutlookToggle and set its value to 0
2. Restart Outlook and Outlook will hang for a while before coming up with a message like "New Outlook had a problem starting" and then Outlook will start with the old style.

Restarting Outlook after that point should result in it starting the old style.

Answer 2

Hi Doug

Thanks for your response, i have switched off the Outlook new option to go back to the old version/ Go into the Word document. Do everything I need to do and click finish and merge... i just get the blue circle, The Word app freezes and Outlook cannot open. The only way to stop it is to open up Task Manager and close down the apps

Have you any other ideas? Strangely, neither yours nor Tim's suggestions haven't worked

Many thanks

Answer 3

Try using the Merge with Attachments facility (you don't need to be sending attachments to use it) on my Merge Tools Add-in that is contained in the MERGE TOOLS ADD-IN.zip file that you can download from:

https://mergetoolsaddin.com/

Extract the files from the archive and read the:

“READ ME – Setting up and using the Merge Tools Add-in.pdf

to see how to install and use the various tools.

Using those tools, it is possible to perform the following types of merge that cannot be done with Mail Merge “out-of-the-box”:

• Merge to e-mail messages either with or without attachments, with the documents created by the merge being sent as either Word or PDF attachments or as the body of the e-mail message .  The email messages can, if necessary, also be sent to CC and BCC addresses and the subject of the message can include data from a field in the data source.
• Merge to individual documents in either Word or PDF format with the filenames being supplied by the data in one of the fields in the data source
• Many to One type merges, which can be used for creating documents such as invoices where there are multiple records in the data source that have common data in one of the fields
• Merging to a document that will include a chart that is unique to each record in the data source
• Merging a document with Content Controls
• Merging a document that contains Legacy FormFields
• Duplex Merges
• Merging to a printer that will collate and staple the output created from each record in the data source.

The requirements for using the system are:

• The mail merge main document must be of the Letters type, though that does not mean that the output cannot be sent as an e-mail message where relevant.
• For the Many To One, Merge with Attachments and Merge to Individual Docs utilities, the data source may be either a table or query in an Access database, or in the form of an Excel worksheet. For the Chart Merge utility, see the Mail Merging with Charts document that is included in the Merge Tools Add-in Zip file for additional requirements for the data source for use with that utility
• For a data source in the form of an Excel worksheet, the field names must be in the first row of the worksheet and there must be a field name in all of the cells in that row that are within the range of columns that contain the data.
• For both types of data source, the field names must contain only alphanumeric characters (No @,#,$,%,&,(,), etc) and the field names must not start with a numeric character (0-9). The number of characters in the field names, including spaces, must not be more than 40.

If you are still having a problem, send me a copy of the mail merge main document and the data source, referencing this thread in the covering email message, and I will investigate the issue.

Answer 4

Thanks for coming back to me Tim, much appreciated, For some reason, I can't see apps and features, only "installed apps". When I click on that and choose Outlook (new) there is no option to "modify".

I also clicked the link in your reply post and my PC doesn't give me an option to "modify" either. I am at a loss of what to do.

This is all very strange

Answer 5

Hi,

I'm Tim, an Independent Advisor here and a Microsoft user like you. I don't work for Microsoft and do not have access to any of your data on their system.

I would consider using an online repair first to resolve any installation errors:-

Please right click on the start button located on your task bar.

Select apps and features

Select the Microsoft Product you wish to modify, in this case either Outlook or Word but this procedure will repair the whole installation.

Depending on your version of Office you will either be asked “How would you like to repair your office programs” Select Online repair.

Or either Change your installation, select repair and then continue.

The below link is a Microsoft Support Document that you can refer to if needed. An online repair can take a considerable amount of time which is completely normal.

https://support.microsoft.com/article/7821d4b6-7c1d-4205-aa0e-a6b40c5bb88b

I hope this information helps. If you have questions, please let me know and I'll be glad to assist you further or If you find it helpful, you can mark this comment as the answer.

Kind regards

Tim