mail merge not working with office 2013

I had the exact same issue. But I found that if I closed my Outlook before I sent the mail merged email that Word would open it up and begin to send. I verified they were in the Outbox and clicked on send/receive all ...Bamm... She started sending. Convoluted...but it worked. Good luck. GT

You could use the Merge with Attachments facility on my Merge Tools Add-in.  It is not necessary to be sending attachments with each message, and the message can be sent either as a pdf or Word attachment to a short message that you compose "on-the-fly" when using the utility, or the output of the merge can form the body of email messages that are sent to each recipient.  It also allows you to send messages to a CC or BCC address and to have the subject of each message be based on data from a field in the data source, with optional standard text before or after the data from that field.

You can download the MergeTools – 20150422.dotm Add-in that I created from the following page of my One Drive:

http://bit.ly/1hduSCB

Do NOT open the MergeTools – 20150422.dotm file.(There are no user serviceable parts inside and it should NOT be used as the basis for creating your mail merge main document.) 

The MergeTools – 20150422.dotm file needs to be saved in the Word Startup folder.  In Windows Vista and Windows 7, 8 or 8.1, and 10, the default location for that folder is

C:\Users[User Name]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Word\STARTUP

If you do not see the AppData folder: -

In Windows 7, - In Windows Explorer, click on the Organize drop down and then on Folder and search options and in the Folder Options dialog, go to the View tab and select the item "Show hidden files, folders, and drives".  While there, it is a good idea to uncheck the box for "Hide extensions for known file types".

In Windows 8,  8.1 or 10, in the File Explorer, click on Options on the View tab of the ribbon and then on the View tab in the dialog that appears and select the item "Show hidden files, folders, and drives".  While there, it is a good idea to uncheck the box for "Hide extensions for known file types".

When that has been done and Word is started\re-started, the tab shown below will be added to the Ribbon:


The requirements for using the system are:

1. The mail merge main document must be of the Letter type, though that does not mean that the output cannot be sent as an e-mail message.
2. For the Many To One, Merge with Attachments and Merge to Individual Docs utilities, the data source may be either a table or query in an Access database, or in the form of an Excel worksheet and that worksheet must be the first sheet in the Excel workbook. If the data is on some other sheet, you can easily move that sheet so that it is the first sheet in the workbook by clicking on the sheet tab and dragging it to the left.  For the Chart Merge utility, download the Mail Merging with Charts document that is also on that page of my OneDrive for additional requirements of the data source for use with that utility
3. For a data source in the form of an Excel worksheet, the field names must be in the first row of the worksheet and there must be a field name in all of the cells in that row that are within the range of columns that contain the data.
4. For both types of data source, the field names must contain only alphanumeric characters (No @,#,$,%,&,(,), etc) and the field names must not start with a numeric character (0-9). The number of characters in the field names, including spaces, must not be more than 40.
5. For a data source in the form of an Excel worksheet, the data must start in the second row of the worksheet and there should be no empty rows within the range of data that is to be processed.
6. If there are multiple addressees in either the To or CC fields of the data source, the email addresses need to be separated by a semi-colon.

NOTE: The MergeTools applications cannot handle “Compound” MergeFields such as the «AddressBlock» or «GreetingLine».  Instead of using those fields, you will need to insert the individual merge fields.

You may also want to download:

1. the Merging with Attachments document that is also on that page which explains how the system is used.  It is not actually necessary to have separate attachments as the facility can be used to send just the documents created by the merge itself as attachments, either as the body of the message itself or in the form of Word files or .pdf files.
2. the Mail Merging with Charts document that is also on that page.  That document explains how you must set up the Excel Data Source and the Mail Merge Main document to be able to execute a merge with a Chart that is unique to each record in the data source.
3. the Using the Many to One Facility document that describes how to use that facility.

It really sucks doesn't it?  I have given up on this.  I have been using Mail Chimp as a workaround since this still doesn't work for me.

FWIW, in another forum, it was reported that a recent update to Skype for Business 2016 is causing these problems. You might want to check for that as a possible cause of the problems with your system.

A work around to the Mail Merge in HTML format would be to use the Merge with Attachments utility on my Merge Tools Add-in, selecting E-mail Messages as the destination of the Merge.   The mail merge main document will then be used as the body of the email message to which, if required, you can attach other documents, though that is not mandatory.

You can download the MergeTools – 20150422.dotm Add-in from the following page of my One Drive:

http://bit.ly/1hduSCB

Do NOT open the MergeTools – 20150422.dotm file.(There are no user serviceable parts inside and it should NOT be used as the basis for creating your mail merge main document.) 

The MergeTools – 20150422.dotm file needs to be saved in the Word Startup folder.  In Windows Vista and Windows 7, 8 or 8.1, and 10, the default location for that folder is

C:\Users[User Name]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Word\STARTUP

If you do not see the AppData folder: -

In Windows 7, - In Windows Explorer, click on the Organize drop down and then on Folder and search options and in the Folder Options dialog, go to the View tab and select the item "Show hidden files, folders, and drives".  While there, it is a good idea to uncheck the box for "Hide extensions for known file types".

In Windows 8,  8.1 or 10, in the File Explorer, click on Options on the View tab of the ribbon and then on the View tab in the dialog that appears and select the item "Show hidden files, folders, and drives".  While there, it is a good idea to uncheck the box for "Hide extensions for known file types".

 When that has been done and Word is started\re-started, the tab shown below will be added to the Ribbon:


The requirements for using the system are:

1. The mail merge main document must be of the Letter type, though that does not mean that the output cannot be sent as an e-mail message.
2. For the Many To One, Merge with Attachments and Merge to Individual Docs utilities, the data source may be either a table or query in an Access database, or in the form of an Excel worksheet and that worksheet must be the first sheet in the Excel workbook. If the data is on some other sheet, you can easily move that sheet so that it is the first sheet in the workbook by clicking on the sheet tab and dragging it to the left.  For the Chart Merge utility, download the Mail Merging with Charts document that is also on that page of my OneDrive for additional requirements of the data source for use with that utility
3. For a data source in the form of an Excel worksheet, the field names must be in the first row of the worksheet and there must be a field name in all of the cells in that row that are within the range of columns that contain the data.
4. For both types of data source, the field names must contain only alphanumeric characters (No @,#,$,%,&,(,), etc) and the field names must not start with a numeric character (0-9). The number of characters in the field names, including spaces, must not be more than 40.
5. For a data source in the form of an Excel worksheet, the data must start in the second row of the worksheet and there should be no empty rows within the range of data that is to be processed.
6. If there are multiple addressees in either the To or CC fields of the data source, the email addresses need to be separated by a semi-colon.

NOTE: The MergeTools applications cannot handle “Compound” MergeFields such as the «AddressBlock» or «GreetingLine».  Instead of using those fields, you will need to insert the individual merge fields.

You may also want to download:

1. the Merging with Attachments document that is also on that page which explains how the system is used.  It is not actually necessary to have separate attachments as the facility can be used to send just the documents created by the merge itself as attachments, either as the body of the message itself or in the form of Word files or .pdf files.
2. the Mail Merging with Charts document that is also on that page.  That document explains how you must set up the Excel Data Source and the Mail Merge Main document to be able to execute a merge with a Chart that is unique to each record in the data source.
3. the Using the Many to One Facility document that describes how to use that facility.