I’m trying to do a mail merge to e-mail, and I’m encountering two problems:

1. I want to send the merged Word document as an attachment (as opposed to plain text or HTML as the body of the e-mail), but I want to include an explanatory message in the body of the e-mail in addition to the attachment (I think it is inadequate to send mails with just a subject line and attachment). Ideally, I would also like to be able to include formatting in the message in the body of the e-mail – and to personalise it by including a contact name from the data source.

I can’t find any way of doing this in the available options in Word. The ‘Merge to E-mail’ dialogue allows me to type in a subject line and to select ‘Attachment’ as mail format, but doesn’t give any additional options regarding the message in the body of the e-mail.

2. When I run the merge, I get a warning from Outlook, saying, “A program is trying to send an e-mail message on your behalf…” with options to allow or deny. Even if I click ‘Allow’ and set it to allow this for ten minutes (the maximum available option), the warning comes up for every single individual mail. I’m mailing to a list of 4,000 recipients, I also have other work to do, and I don’t want RSI. How do I set it to allow Word to send the whole mailing?

I would be grateful for answers to either or both of these points.