mail-merge vs layout :-}

[eNGiNe]

OK, I've inherited a task from a colleague while she's away … using MailMerge to send a formatted e-mail to various people in the company. (so, everyone's using Outlook)

From other examples of these mails I've seen, people are accustomed to a specific layout: a fairly narrow, centred text area with a banner image. Not rocket-science, and custom margin settings let me prepare exactly what I want to send. But as soon as I click on Mailings > Start MailMerge > email, Word changes to web layout and discards the custom margin.



Assuming ( ) this is an appropriate approach in the first place, how do set up the message so that the layout is preserved? I know how to code it myself in .html, but that doesn't really help just now.

[macropod]

Surely your colleague left a mailmerge main document somewhere?!!!?

If not, you may need to study the structure of one of the colleague's merge emails to see how it was done. For example, perhaps the content was in a fixed-width table.

[eNGiNe]

We're in the third quarter of 2014, and for generations now toddlers have been learning the mantra "Don't use tables for layout". Alongside that, there's less and less certainty that people viewing the e-mail I send will be using a desktop monitor – so 'fixed width' is also less than ideal. This is only a mail-merge question in the sense that it's mail-merge that prompts Word to switch from 'good enough' print layout into 'less good' Web layout.
Reformulating the question: can I use the Office mail-merge functions to send fully-formatted e-mails that use CSS for a simple, flexible three-column layout? if so, how do I set about it?

[macropod]

If you want to go down that path, see: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa338201.aspx
Instead of reinventing the wheel, though, I'd encourage you to find whatever your colleague was using.

If you need more help with implementation, Id suggest asking here:
https://www.msofficeforums.com/outlook/
or at:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/outlook

[eNGiNe]

I'd hardly call using CSS for html layout "reinventing the wheel" – it feels more like using a standard bicycle instead of sticking with a penny-farthing or a Pedestrian Curricle. (by extension, using Word to write html is trying to do the Tour de France on a pogo-stick: not the job the tool was designed for)

Result-driven, I managed to produce what was required by copy/pasting a three-column table from Word into Outlook and not going anywhere near .html – shouldn't have been distracted by the fact that colleague's reported procedure started from a web editor.

[macropod]

By "reinventing the wheel" I was referring to recreating whatever it was your colleague was using, not to the quality of the tools.

Glad you got it sorted, though.

[eNGiNe]

I see what you mean :-} and thanks for setting the thread to Solved; I forgot …