I'm sorry, I have to rant today. It's been building up inside me for a while, and now I can't contain it. Here's my tale of woe.

We're looking to expand the contracting side of the business at the moment, and one of the things I'm doing is sending small (50-100 recipient) mailshots out about once a month to potential customers or other companies we can work with. (Aside: fifty quid spent on stamps, envelopes, and printed flyers has a much, much greater return than the equivalent amount spent on Google ads).

So I have my list of addresses in an Excel spreadsheet, I have my labels ready, my printer is on, and I'm full of coffee. It should be a ten-minute job but it seems that the mail-merge feature in Word is a second-class citizen, and doesn't have that level of polish that the rest of the application does.

(And I really like the rest of the application - Microsoft have done great things with the latest version; they've taken a much-need risk with the new UI, have come up with a great new alternative to a complex menu system, and have really brought things up-to-date with the new style set and charting system).

Just through trying to print labels, I've found the following bugs. Not show-stoppers, obviously, but annoying as hell. I'll categorize them by operation.

Mailings -> Start Mail Merge -> Labels...

• Defaults to manual tray. Every time. Even though that's the worst option on my printer. And if I forget to choose Tray 1, I get to the end of the mail-merge, won't be able to print, and will have to start all over again.

Select Recipients -> Use Existing List...

• File browser always resets to "All Data Sources". My spreadsheet isn't there, so I always have to browse for it.
• "First row of data contains column headers". You better hope your spreadsheet fits this pattern, because if it doesn't, even if you uncheck this option, you won't be able to print the first address.
• By default, Excel creates three sheets. I would guess that 99% of spreadsheets only use the first one. Surely Word could filter out the empty sheets in the list?

Update Labels

• OK, I'm not a mail-merge wizz, so maybe there's some special case I'm not aware of here. But basically, any time you make a change, you have to click "Update Labels". Couldn't this be automatic? Or perhaps, a checkbox for automatic/manual?
• Line spacing. The labels default to paragraph-spacing between each address line, which means that the address won't fit on the labels. The solution is to highlight the address block, go to the home tab, then select "No Spacing", go back to the Mailings tab, and click "Update Labels". Would "no spacing" from the get-go be a better default? I think so.

Back to Excel

• So I'm trying to figure stuff out. I want to open the source spreadsheet to compare. Excel tells me that the file format or file extension is not valid. So (a) it gives me an incorrect error message (actually the file is in use), and (b) Word surely doesn't need to keep the file open?

Preview Results

• When previewing results, the back/forward buttons move in steps of one record. So to preview the next page, I have to know my 14-times table. Perhaps we could also have page back/page next buttons?

So What's the Solution?

1. Start testing the mail-merge feature. Not from specs, but from a task-based standpoint: actually buy some labels, use a cheap laser or inkjet printer, and see how long it takes.
2. Fix up the immediate problems. Have Word remember certain critical settings (such as data source locations and default printer trays). Fix Excel's confusing error messages.
3. Separate out orthogonal concepts. For example, the choice of tray to use in the printer could logically be modified in complete isolation to every other aspect of the mail-merge process. Unfortunately, with the current design, if you need to change it, you have to start the entire process from scratch.
4. Identify key tasks the user performs, and build the user interface around that. For example: you can choose the basic layout of the labels by manufacturer, but I often find that I've got my margins slightly wrong. Instead of having to go back to the beginning to reset the label layout, why not have a "nudge" feature to allow slight adjustments to the margins? If I realise I've picked the wrong source spreadsheet, let me just change that: I don't want to to have to re-format all my address lines first. (This "task-based" approach has worked very nicely with new features such as style-sets, and cover pages).