Dual thank you cards to many people using Office Publisher

After hosting a graduation party, combined with a birthday party of younger sister, I find myself needing to send out thank you cards to a long list of people.  Since most of my family, at least, came for both parties, I'll be making both sets of cards at the same time and simply discarding one of the cards if it is irrelevant to the particular recipient.

For this project, I will be using the optimal tool for greeting cards, Microsoft Publisher.  Like Microsoft Word, it has a mail merge feature, which allows you to fill in certain aspects of a publication with details that change per print, such as the addressee's name. Mail merge is extremely powerful and can be used by any ordinary person, although it is usually only taught to, discovered by, and employed by business people, such as to send out a bill payment notice. For this reason, and publishing this pictorial on how I use mail merge to make sending out thank you cards for a  party a breeze.

In publisher 2010, we start with file >New >Greeting cards >Thank you section and look for one related to graduation. One of the available templates has two per page, which I selected so I could cut down the middle to make the two separate cards for each person.

Immediately, I start a mail merge.  This way, when I start formatting my publication, I can put the variables in where I want them. I start typing a new list, there's a column for each possible detail, and I remove all but the address columns, first and last names, and title column.  In this case, I won't be using the title for Mr. or Mrs., But I'll be using it for nicknames, or rather, simply how I normally address them.  The first and last names column is for their official title for going on the address.

Simply mass-producing letters like this may seem impersonal, but that's why we can use it to our advantage to create a personal touch.  Some of my guests gave me gifts, some of them cards, some of them both.  So I'll add another column titled "gift" where I will put what each person gave me, for use in a sentence such as ". . .  And thank you for the gift and card!" The problem, of course, is if they didn't get me anything, it would read " and thank you for  !", so for these people, I can put something like "coming".  In my case, however, I will be using a special variable that will eliminate the sentence altogether.

It takes some scavenging, but after almost an hour I eventually I find the addresses of every attendee and the list is complete.  I save this list somewhere I can remember, since I will be using the merge one more time on the envelopes themselves for mailing.

Formatting the cards, adding pictures and a unique message can now be given more time thanks to mail merge. The template gets a different color scheme so the cards don’t seem too similar, and an address field, return address, and custom messages are added (Use Mailings > Insert Merge Field). Here you can see the fields (such as <<Title>>) inserted at strategic locations. The next picture shows a filled out card (Mailings > Preview Results) and I can scroll between all the people using the arrow buttons there.

And the inside (remember, two cards in one, to be separated down the middle after printing):

Finally these get printed on to thick, card stock greeting card paper (half-fold) and separated, sealed and stamped to be mailed in postcard form. Make sure your printer’s duplexer option is set, so it will print on both sides, or else you’ll have to re-insert each one the right way (good luck!). Since these half-fold cards, in my case, essentially make one quarter-fold card, I need to set it the double-sided printing to the “flip on the short edge” option instead of the default, “flip on the long edge”. You also might need to make some things upside down, so print a test page on normal paper (“draft” quality) first. Then, select all objects on one quarter of the card, group them, (right-click > group) and then rotate that group 180 degrees by dragging the green handle. That’s it, you’re done!

On last thing – for me, spending two stamps on each person isn’t worth it, so I’ll be putting both cards in one envelope and slapping on a mailing label. So I open an new publisher project for the mailing label sticker paper I have, and use the same mail merge list on it, and print. Viola!