When you generate letters in Bloomerang CRM, you can download envelopes and labels as well as an address file for all of your recipients. The address file contains all of your recipients' addresses, in the same order that they were returned in Bloomerang CRM. This article describes how to download these files, and how to use Microsoft Word 2013 to print mailing labels. For more information about performing a mail merge in Microsoft Word, including instructions for more recent versions of Word, read the Microsoft documentation Use mail merge for bulk email, letters, labels, and envelopes.
Download Letters and Addresses
First, create your letters in Bloomerang CRM.
During the Preview step, you may notice a warning about bad, incomplete, or missing addresses. You can fix the addresses or filter them out of your letters, or you can continue generating your letters and Bloomerang CRM will provide an address file with the constituents' names but no addresses for any bad, incomplete, or missing addresses. When you get to the We're Done page, click the Download Letters and Download Addresses buttons.
Note: When a zip code starts with a zero (such as 07083) the leading zero is dropped. After downloading your address file, reformat the zip code column to keep the leading zeroes by following Microsoft's instructions here.
Generate Labels in Microsoft Word
After you have downloaded the letters and addresses, perform a mail merge in Word using the address file:
Open Microsoft Word and create a new blank document.
Click the Mailings tab on the ribbon, then click Start Mail Merge.
Click Labels to open the Label Options box.
In the Label Vendors box in the Label Information group, select the name of the company from which you purchased your labels.
In the Product Number box, click the number that corresponds to the particular set of labels that you are going to print, and click OK.
Click Mailings on the ribbon, then find the Start Mail Merge group. Click Select Recipients, then click Use an Existing List.
Browse to and select the addresses file that you downloaded from Bloomerang CRM. If a File Conversion box opens, click OK.
Click Mailings on the ribbon, then find the Write & Insert Fields group. Click Insert Merge Field.
Select the following fields in this order:
EnvelopeName
Address (this inserts the street address or full international address)
City
State
ZipCode
Country (add for international addresses)
Add any necessary punctuation and spacing between the merge fields. To put the merge fields on separate lines, click after the double arrows at the end of the merge field and press Enter.
Note: If the Envelope Name in Bloomerang CRM contains a paragraph break (part of the name is on another line), the break will display in Microsoft Word. You cannot remove the paragraph break in Word, because it is treated as one field in the mail merge.
In Mailings, find the Write & Insert Fields group. Click Update Labels to copy the address block to all the other label fields in the document.
In Mailings, find the Preview Results group. Click Preview Results. This replaces the merge fields with the first few addresses. Verify that they are inserted correctly, but remember that any labels for bad, incomplete, or missing addresses will contain only the constituent's name.
In Mailings, find the Finish group. Click Finish & Merge, and then click Print Documents. This sends your completed address labels to your printer.
(Optional) If you want to save these labels to use them later, click Finish & Merge, then Edit Individual Documents instead. On your printed labels, you can handwrite the correct address for any labels that contain only the constituent's name.