Help! Newsletter Transfer Crisis!

[bsaxman]

Okay... I'm really hoping that SOMEONE will have an expert opinion and tell me what I'm doing wrong! I created a march newsletter in Microsoft Word, saved it, then emailed the document (straight from word) to my email address. When I check my web-based email (I use gmail.com) the newsletter doesn't look like my word document at all, and things are out of order and... ugh I dont understand! What am I doing wrong? Shouldn't the email look like my word document! Please HELP!?!

 

[cathyskitchen]

It's because you're sending it in gmail, which uses HTML, and it's not a "word processor", so it doesn't save the formatting. You'll either have to attach the word document to the email, or post each piece of the newsletter into an email and format it the best you can. Some email programs use word processors (like Outlook) so you can make them look nice, but gmail doesn't. HTH!

 

[chefann]

If you use Outlook to handle your outgoing email (at least for your newsletter), you can do it.First, set up Outlook to access your gmail account. You can refer to instructions both on the gmail site and in the Outlook help.
Second, create a file that contains your email addresses. An Excel file is the easiest. Save and close it.
Third, open your Word document. Go to Tools and select Mail Merge. Create a new document (form letter) from the current document (your newsletter). When prompted for a data source, point to the Excel file you created.
Fourth, merge to email. This will create one message in your Outlook outbox for each person in your list. Send them.If you want to make sure that it will still work and maintain the formatting, send it only to yourself, and then check it from within your browser through gmail.

 

[ginamkiely]

one more question regarding this... whenever i do this, mail merge e-mail, it won't send pics in it unless i make it an attachment. why is that?

 

[bsaxman]

thanks for the response, ann i will try your suggestion tomorrow.... :chef: for now must get sleeeeeep!

 

[cathyskitchen]

one more question regarding this... whenever i do this, mail merge e-mail, it won't send pics in it unless i make it an attachment. why is that?

It sounds like it's not embedding the images and it's attaching them instead. It must be the way the mail merge instructs the files to load. I'm not sure what the workaround for it is, though - Ann, any thoughts?

 

[PampChefJoy]

Oooh, I've never had much luck with a graphical layout based and image-intensive newsletter translating well via Outlook to web-based email programs. That's a big reason why I switched to HTML-based email and use a mailing list service now. It's a great layout, though.

The only thing I can think of, but will sacrifice image quality, is to print it to pdf and then clip the pdf as an image/jpeg and paste that back into your newsletter so you are sending the entire newsletter embedded as an image. It will retain the layout and appearance that you want. But I think most of the images and text will become pixelated and won't appear well.

Gina-marie: Are you copy/pasting the images along with the text? That never works for me. I have to paste the text and then go back and individually insert images into the text where I want it or else they appear as red x's.

I'm not a techie so I can't explain WHY these things happen. I just know from trial and error (and headaches!).

 

[chefann]

It sounds like it's not embedding the images and it's attaching them instead. It must be the way the mail merge instructs the files to load. I'm not sure what the workaround for it is, though - Ann, any thoughts?

Part of it is probably a Microsoft bug, er... undocumented feature. Their software can do some amazing things, but it's bloated and adds all kinds of extra code behind the scenes to documents that can cause problems later on. That's not entirely Microsoft's fault - people try to use the software to do things that it's not really the right tool for (Word is a word processor, not page layout software, but people use it as such).

 

[bsaxman]

another question... would it work better if I used another microsoft program such as publisher?

 

[chefann]

I don't know that Publisher has a mail merge function. That one is page layout, rather than word processing. But it might be geared more toward printing than electronic distribution. I only had a copy of Publisher for a short time several years ago, so I can't check it out.

 

[PCMelissa]

I agree with ChefAnn, publisher is for print. I am sure there is some software out there that is specially for email design. Good luck!

 

[bsaxman]

ThanksThe only way I could get the document to send out via email was by saving as a single webpage, and emailing it as an attachment. I don't really mind having to send it as an attachment, and I really like how it opens up in the internet exporer or browser as a webpage of its own. Kindof neat. Anyways, thanks for the help and advice. I may save myself the :yuck: struggle and just subscribe to a newsletter... or continue sending it out as a webpage attachment each month. I'll see what my customers say about it!!!!

Again, thanks a bunch. Send me your email and i would be glad to forward it to you if you'd like a peek.

Yours,

B

 

[PurpleAngel]

Have you tried making it a PDF...then all of your information would remain in place. There are several FREE PDF creators out there.

 

[bsaxman]

I dont have PDF creator, just the free adobe reader. I do see that publisher has an email-ready format, so next month I will try that and see if that works any better... If not, i'll check out the pdf world! Thanx