See that little plus sign with the arrows? Click on that to select the entire table. Then you can use CTRL-C to copy it and CTRL-V to paste it. Click that, and the entire table is selected. The easiest way to copy an entire table is to hover the mouse over the top left-hand corner until you see a + sign. What I needed was just the table with the exhibit numbers and descriptions.) (The reason I couldn’t simply use the pleading itself as a data source is that Mail Merge would’ve been confused by all the text outside of the table. All I had to do was copy the table with the exhibit numbers and descriptions into a new document and save it. Since the paralegal had already done the exhibit list in the form of a Word table, it was pretty easy to create a data source. In the case of our exhibit labels, we’ll get one or more sheets of file folder labels, each label with a different exhibit number and description. In plain English, what this means is that you’ll get multiple copies of your document, each one with a different set of data. The Mail Merge process involves configuring your main Word document to pick up the various elements in the data source to create multiple copies with the different variables.

A data source that contains the variable data, such as a list of addresses or, in this case, the exhibit numbers and descriptions.

This will contain the text that will remain the same for each merged copy.

A main Word document (for example, a letter, envelope, or set of labels).

To understand Mail Merge, you have to get a few key concepts straight in your head. In the last few versions of Microsoft Word, Mail Merge has gone from a fairly straightforward process through what I consider a gosh-awful “wizard” that just seemed to make the process even more intimidating back to a somewhat simpler interface on the Mailings tab on the Ribbon. So that made it easy to use Mail Merge to create the labels, because we had a ready-to-use data source.

Thankfully, the trial exhibit list that was e-filed with the court was done in the form of a table. The one requirement the paralegal had was the trial exhibit numbers had to be large and easy to read. And “where necessary” included helping a secretary with making file folders for 100+ trial exhibits.

Thankfully, I wasn’t directly involved (I’ve seen the looks on the faces of the people who are, and I don’t want that), but I did pitch in where necessary. One firm I’ve been working with has been in “trial mode” for a couple of weeks now.

Mail merge labels from excel having 0