Excel to Word: Mail Merge Lists and Tables
A spreadsheet reaches Word in one of two ways: as the data source behind a mail merge, or as a finished table pasted into a report. This page converts the workbook into a .docx table and explains when you should skip conversion and merge instead.
Document Converter
or drop PDF, DOC, DOCX … files here ·
Max 95 MB per file· Up to 20 files· Deleted after 30 minutes
Files are processed on our servers and deleted after 30 minutes.
150 DPI turns an A4 page into about 1240 × 1754 px. Use 300 for printing.
Convert the whole file or only some pages or slides (PDF and presentation input).
Pages or slides to convert, e.g. 1-3, 5, 8-10.
UTF-8 works for every language. Choose UTF-8 with BOM if Excel or Notepad on Windows shows garbled characters; legacy encodings only for old software.
LF for macOS, Linux and code editors; CRLF for older Windows programs such as classic Notepad.
Comma is standard. Use semicolon for Excel in countries that write decimals with a comma (Germany, France, Brazil).
Excel input with several sheets: convert all of them (one section or file per sheet) or only the first.
How to use this tool
- 1
Upload the workbook
Drop one or more .xlsx, .xls or .ods files. Each can be up to 95 MB, and you can queue 20 at a time.
- 2
Pick the sheets
This page converts the first sheet only, which is where most address and contact lists live. Switch Spreadsheet sheets to All sheets to get one section per sheet.
- 3
Convert and open in Word
Press Convert to DOCX. The rows arrive as an editable Word table with column widths, bold headers and cell shading kept.
How do I get Excel data into Word?
For letters, envelopes or labels, keep the .xlsx and run a mail merge from Word's Mailings tab. For a table you will edit inside a document, upload the workbook here and press Convert to DOCX.
Mail merge from Excel to Word, step by step
Mail merge is far older than the .xlsx format; word processors offered it in the early 1980s. In Word the current workflow sits on the Mailings tab introduced with Office 2007, the same release that made XLSX and DOCX the defaults. The idea is simple: one row in Excel equals one letter, envelope or label in Word.
Prepare the sheet first. Row 1 must hold column names such as FirstName, Street and City, with no blank rows above it and no merged cells in the header. Then in Word choose Start Mail Merge, pick Letters or Labels, use Select Recipients > Use an Existing List to open the workbook and choose the sheet. Place fields with Insert Merge Field, check a few records with Preview Results, and finish with Finish & Merge to print or to create one document per row.
If the list is going to a phone or an email client rather than to paper, a merge is the wrong tool. Excel to VCF turns the same rows into contact cards that phones import directly.
Mail merge or a converted Word table: which one you need
Excel stays the data source
Word reads the workbook and repeats your template once per row.
- Output is many letters, envelopes or labels
- Edit the list in Excel, merge again
- Needs Word on Windows or Mac
The sheet becomes a table
The rows are copied once into a .docx as a normal Word table.
- Output is one document
- Edit cells directly in Word, Google Docs or LibreOffice
- No link back to the workbook
Why a large sheet will not fit in one Word table
- rows per Excel sheet since Excel 2007
- 1,048,576
- columns per Excel sheet (A to XFD)
- 16,384
- columns allowed in one Word table
- 63
XLSX
Microsoft Excel workbook
XLSX is Microsoft Excel's default workbook format since Office 2007, based on the Office Open XML standard. It stores multiple sheets, formulas, formatting, charts, pivot tables and data validation in a ZIP package of XML. It supports over a million rows per sheet and is the default exchange format for business spreadsheets. Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers open XLSX, though macros and advanced features may not carry over.
- Compression
- –
- Transparency
- –
- Animation
- –
- Introduced
- 2007 · Microsoft
DOCX
Microsoft Word document
DOCX is Microsoft Word's default document format since Office 2007, based on the Office Open XML standard (ECMA-376, ISO/IEC 29500). It is a ZIP package of XML files holding text, styles, images, tables, comments and tracked changes. It is the most common format for editable documents in offices, schools and job applications. Layout can shift slightly between Word, Google Docs, LibreOffice and Pages, especially with complex formatting. Most word processors open DOCX files.
- Compression
- –
- Transparency
- –
- Animation
- –
- Introduced
- 2007 · Microsoft
Excel files go to Word when rows of data have to become something people read: a table inside a report, a letter per row through mail merge, or labels printed from an address list.
Trim the sheet before converting
A workbook with thousands of rows becomes a Word table hundreds of pages long that is slow to scroll and print. Filter to the rows you need, copy them to a new sheet and convert that, or send the full data as Excel to HTML for a page that scrolls in a browser.
Excel to Word questions
Do I have to convert Excel to Word before a mail merge?
No. Word reads the .xlsx directly as a recipient list through Mailings > Select Recipients > Use an Existing List. Convert only when you want the table itself inside the document, for example a price list in a proposal.
Why do percentages and dates look wrong in my merged letters?
Mail merge pulls the stored value, not what the cell displays, so 25% arrives as 0.25 and a date can arrive in US order. Format those columns as Text in Excel before merging, or add a picture switch such as \# "0%" to the merge field.
What happens to formulas when the sheet becomes a Word table?
Word tables have no live formulas tied to cells, so each formula is replaced by the value Excel last calculated. Recalculate and save the workbook first if you changed inputs.
My sheet has 80 columns. Will it fit?
A Word table can hold at most 63 columns, and even 15 columns are hard to read on a portrait page. Hide or delete the columns you do not need in Excel, or convert to Excel to PDF when you only need a printable copy.
Can I make mailing labels from an Excel list?
Yes, that is a mail merge job rather than a conversion. In Word choose Mailings > Start Mail Merge > Labels, pick the label vendor and product number printed on the sheet, then point it at your workbook.
Are merged cells and colors kept?
With Formatting on Keep all, merged header cells, fills, borders and bold text carry over to the Word table. Conditional formatting is applied as the colors it showed at the time of conversion, not as a rule.
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