I don’t write letters much anymore.  Email has replaced snail-mail in my mind. But sometimes, on the occasional time where I have to write a letter or make something look professional, I want to insert the name and address of the person I’m contacting at the top of the letter. So I would say that three quarters of my time is spent actually writing the letter and the other quarter of the time is used hunting for the right merge field to insert into the header.

But recently, I found the “name_and_address” merge field. It’s always been there, it just never occurred to me to use it. So rather than inserting all of the individual merge fields into your document, you just need to insert the one name_and_address merge field.

You can change the format of the name_and_address merge field by going to file>preferences and selecting the format tab. In the Address format area is where you will need do some leg work and select all of the important fields that you want to include in the name_and_address merge field.  This is also happens to be the same place where you would format your the addresses on any labels you want to print.

This little “trick” will save you a few seconds here and there. It may not seem like much, but a few seconds here and there adds up to a few minutes here and there. And those minutes turn into hours. And those hours turn into days... you get my point.