Mailing labels & mail merge

Karani doesn’t print labels itself. It gives you a correctly structured CSV, and your word processor does the printing.

Downloading the addresses

1. Open the Groups page and click the group you want to mail.

2. Click Export in the top left of the group page.

3. Choose Download Addresses for Mail Merge.

A .CSV file downloads to your computer with one row per contact, including the name, greeting, and primary address.

karani.co/contacts/mail-merge/select-contacts

You can also start from Contacts and pick an arbitrary set rather than a whole group.

Printing labels from the CSV

The file is a standard mail-merge source. Follow Microsoft’s guide for creating and printing mailing labels from an address list, or the equivalent in Pages, Google Docs, or LibreOffice.

How names are chosen

The name on each row is worked out in this order:

1. The contact’s Greeting, if set — “Jim and Barb”, “Mr. and Mrs. Smith”.
2. Otherwise, the contact’s name plus any family member marked include in mail merges.
3. Otherwise, just the contact’s name.

Greeting is your override

For anyone whose preferred form of address doesn’t follow the usual pattern — different surnames, a title that matters, a nickname — set the Greeting field on their contact record and it wins.

Which address is used

The primary address — the one in the main Address / City / State / Postal Code fields, not one of the additional addresses. See Emails, phones & addresses.

Contacts with no address

Contacts without a primary address are exported with the address columns empty, rather than being dropped. Sort by the address column in your spreadsheet to find them, and either fill in the address or exclude them from the mailing.

Mail merge without a group

If you want an arbitrary set of people rather than a whole group, go to Contacts → Mail merge and select contacts there. Same output format.

Logging the mailing

Once you’ve sent it, record it — otherwise those contacts will start showing up in Out of Touch Donors despite hearing from you. Add an interaction of type Mail to the whole group at once with Bulk tasks & interactions.

Sending paper mail without printing it

PrayerLetters.com prints and posts for you from a synced Karani group.