Print numbered tickets in Word | Raffle Ticket Creator

Printable numbered tickets in Word 2007: step-by-step instructions

Note: Updated version for Word 2016 is here

(Instructions for Word for Mac 2011 are here. And instructions for Publisher are here.)

You'll create a document with several raffle tickets on each page, as many as you need, and each ticket will have a unique number. In other words: a template of printable numbered tickets.

Step 1. Create your basic numbered raffle ticket template in Word

Open Word and create a new document and create one raffle ticket. You want to make it about the right size so that you can fit four tickets on the page. Leave space for the ticket numbers, which you'll add in a minute. Something like this:

Then maybe add some color and design to it:

Step 2 Create a single page of tickets

Once you are happy with your basic layout, copy everything three times so you have a page of four tickets. At this point, they won't be numbered tickets just yet, you will add the numbers in a moment:

Step 3 - Create a list of numbers, in Excel

Open Excel and create a new workbook. In cell A1, type the number "1" (without quotes) (or another number, if you want to start your numbering from a different number):

In the cell below, type "=A1+1" (without quotes) and hit enter/return:

That'll put a 2 in that cell, like this:

Now click the tiny black square in the bottom right of that cell, keep your mouse button clicked and drag down for as many rows as you need raffle tickets:

... all the way down to (say) 500 rows (to give you 500 unique ticket numbers):

(If you prefer using the keyboard, rather than the mouse, then do this instead of dragging down: select cell A2, hit CTRL+C to copy, then select cell A3 and use SHIFT+PageDown to select all the way down to row 500. Then hit CTRL+V to paste.)

Now save your spreadsheet somewhere you can find it again, and close Excel.

Step 4: Add numbers to your Word doc, to get a printable document of pre-numbered raffle tickets

Return to your Word document and go to Mailings > Start Mail Merge > Letters:

Then go to Select Recipients > Use Existing List:

Navigate to the Excel spreadsheet of numbers which you created earlier, and open it. On the dialog box which appears, uncheck the box 'First row of data contains column headers' and Click 'OK':

Now put your cursor at the point where you want the ticket number to appear on the ticket.

Click on Insert Merge Field, and something like 'M_1' will appear as a clickable item below the 'Insert Merge Field' button. That's a field name, representing your ticket number:

Click that, and a placeholder will appear where your cursor was, which will later insert the ticket number at that point. Do that twice for each ticket (once for the counterfoil, once for the main ticket). You should end up with something like this:

Repeat for all four tickets on the page:

 Step 5: Make sure each ticket gets a new number

Now for the slightly hard bit. If you just try and complete your merge now, you'll get several pages of tickets. Each page will have four tickets on it. But all tickets on any page will have the same number. Each page will have a different number, but all the tickets on that page will have the same number. That's no good. You need each ticket to have a different number.

To get Word to put a different number on each ticket, you need to insert a special field to tell Word to look for the next number after the end of each ticket, rather than the end of each page.

Put your cursor just after the second <<M_1>> placeholder on the first ticket. Then click Rules > Next Record:

 That will insert the 'Next Record' placeholder in your ticket, telling Word to get the next number ready for the second ticket. Your document should look something like this:

Now repeat for the second and third tickets. But not the fourth, because that's at the end of the page, so Word will skip to the next number anyway, because the next page always gets the next item in your merge list. Your document should look like this:

Step 6: Complete your merge to generate a document with lots of tickets, all with different numbers

Now click on Finish & Merge > Edit individual documents:

Click 'OK' on the next dialog, and you'll get a new document, with four tickets per page and each ticket will have a different number:

Print that out, and you are done!

Looking for an easier way? Use this tool to create numbered raffle tickets online, then print them on your computer: