You can retrieve contact information directly from your Outlook Contact List.

You can create a simple Office Address List during the mail merge, and access it for later use. This is best for small, simple lists that you don't use frequently.

With Excel, you can select data from any worksheet or named range within a workbook. With Access, you can select data from any table or query (query: A means of finding all the records stored in a data source that fit a set of criteria you name. Queries can contain operators, quotation marks, wildcard characters, and parentheses to help focus your search.) defined in the database.

You can use:

• A data source you connect to by using the Data Connection Wizard.
• Files from single-tier, file-based database programs for which you have installed an OLE-DB provider (OLE: A program-integration technology that you can use to share information between programs. All Office programs support OLE, so you can share information through linked and embedded objects.) or ODBC (Open Database Connectivity (ODBC): A standard method of sharing data between databases and programs. ODBC drivers use the standard Structured Query Language (SQL) to gain access to external data.) driver (a number of which are included with Microsoft Office).

You can access these sources or start the Data Connection Wizard by clicking New Source in the Select Data Source dialog box.

You can use an HTML (HTML: The standard markup language used for documents on the World Wide Web. HTML uses tags to indicate how Web browsers should display page elements such as text and graphics and how to respond to user actions.) file that has a single table. The first row of the table must contain column names and the other rows must contain data.

• A Microsoft Outlook Address Book.
• A Microsoft Schedule+ 7.0 Contact List.
• The Personal Address Book that you created for use with Microsoft Exchange Server.
• Any similar address lists that were created with a MAPI (MAPI: The Microsoft interface specification that allows different messaging and workgroup applications (including e-mail, voice mail, and fax) to work through a single client.)-compatible messaging system, such as Microsoft Outlook.

You can use a Word document as a data source. The document should contain a single table. The first row of the table must contain headings, and the other rows must contain the records you want to merge. You can also use a header source (header source: A document that contains the header row (or header record) to be used with the data source specified for a mail-merge main document.) as a data source.

You can use any text file that has data fields (data field: A category of information that corresponds to one column of information in a data source. The name of each data field is listed in the first row (header row) of the data source. "PostalCode" and "LastName" are examples of data field names.) separated (or delimited) by tab characters or commas and data records (data record: A complete set of related information that corresponds to one row of information in the data source. All information about one client in a client mailing list is an example of a data record.) separated by paragraph marks.