The spreadsheet is the source of truth. Writer only dresses it.

Who this is for

A shop sending fee reminders, a teacher printing certificates, a club mailing labels. Not a CRM. Not two thousand rows on cafe Wi-Fi with the XLSX still in Cloud. Kingsoft’s Writer includes a Mail Merge or Mailings path; labels move by build. The workflow does not: clean columns, attach the sheet, insert fields, preview, merge. Core editing is free. Ads may appear. That is not a broken merge. Official app only — wps.com/download.

The Writer page already warned you. This guide is the numbered version the till PC can follow. Related composite: shop owner.

Build the list like a database, not like a poster

Open Spreadsheet. Row 1 is headers: FirstName, LastName, Address1, City, PostalCode, Email — names without spaces if you can help it. One person per row. Split first and last name. Do not hide a second address in the same cell because it “looks fine” on screen. Do not merge header cells. Save as XLSX in the same local folder you will keep the letter. Cloud paths that drop offline mid-merge waste an afternoon. See sync and formulas if you used IF to build a greeting.

Watch locale. A postal code that Excel stored as a number may drop a leading zero. Format that column as text before you merge. Dates in letters should be text you control, not a serial number that prints as 45321.

The letter, then the connection

In Writer, put the logo in the header. Write the body with ordinary paragraphs. Leave obvious holes where names will go, or insert fields as you go. Start letterhead from a template only after you delete every dummy name. A merge that still says “John Smith, 123 Example Street” in the footer will print that on every envelope.

Open Mail Merge / Mailings. Choose the data source: your XLSX, then the sheet. Confirm WPS saw the header row. If it treats headers as Record 1, cancel and fix row 1. Insert fields: FirstName, Address1, and so on. Add spaces and commas in the template, not inside the spreadsheet cells, unless the cell is already a finished line.

Preview is the whole job

Preview at least five records. Include the longest name (layout), a missing Address2 (double spaces, leftover commas), and a non-Latin name if you have one (fonts). Empty fields are how “Dear ,” happens. Fix the template with conditionals if your build offers them, or add a helper column in Spreadsheet that already contains the greeting line. Then preview again.

Teachers printing 90 certificates: three-name test print first, including a very long name. Students: keep the university template in the format the graduate school published; merge is not a reason to fight a required Word file. See compatibility.

Finish without melting the printer

Merge to printer or to individual files. For two thousand rows, merge fifty first. Watch paper orientation. Labels have their own template; a letter scaled onto label stock is a tax. Keep both files local until the job ends. Then copy the XLSX to wherever you actually back up membership data. A till PC is not a records policy. Do not put the only customer list in WPS Cloud’s about 1 GB free locker.

If merge is greyed out, you may be in a PDF or a read-only file. Save the letter as DOCX. If fields show as code instead of names, toggle preview. If every envelope uses the first row, the sheet range is wrong or headers were not detected.

Labels, certificates, and fonts in the merge

Labels are a different main document, not a letter scaled down in print preview. Use the label size your stock actually is. A 5160 that you “eyeballed” will shift by the tenth row. Printers eat the first millimeter; test on plain paper. Certificates and cards have the same problem at larger type: the longest name must fit the box in preview, not in your head. If a name is in another script, confirm the Writer font has those glyphs before you print 90 copies. That is the Linux font story wearing a gown — Linux fonts and compatibility.

A merge field inside a header or footer is allowed and easy to forget. If every page should show a member ID, put the field in the header on purpose. If only the first page should show a logo, use Different first page so the field does not duplicate. Tables in the letter body that contain fields should have fixed column widths. Auto-fit plus a long German compound noun will shove the address into the margin.

Data that came from a POS export or a Google Sheet download is often dirty: two header rows, a totals row at the bottom, blank rows that become empty letters. Delete the totals row. Filter blanks. If you used formulas to build a greeting, paste values before you connect Writer so the merge sees text, not a formula the other machine might not calculate the same way — formulas. CSV as a data source works when you set the delimiter; it fails when a comma lives inside an address. Prefer XLSX for the merge itself.

Do not email two thousand individual files from a free webmail the same afternoon you discovered merge-to-documents. Finish to a folder, spot-check ten, then use a tool you already pay for. WPS is the composer, not your entire outbound campaign stack. Cloud mid-merge is how a cafe Wi-Fi stall writes 400 letters named Document1. Keep the pair local until the job ends, then back up the XLSX where membership data actually belongs.

Numbered merge steps

1. Create an XLSX with one header row and clean columns. Format postal codes as text. Save locally.
2. Write the letter in Writer. Logo in the header. Remove dummy names from any template.
3. Mail Merge → select the spreadsheet and sheet. Confirm headers.
4. Insert merge fields. Add punctuation in the letter, not in jammed cells.
5. Preview five records: longest name, empty field, unusual characters.
6. Fix spacing. Preview again. Merge a fifty-row slice before the full list.
7. Print or create files. Keep the DOCX and XLSX. Export a PDF sample if you must archive the look of one letter.

Related: Writer, small business, troubleshooting, download.