How do you add text to email mailmerge?

[DerekScambler]

Hi,

I am trying to create a mailmerge that I can email out to our clients. I have got the first part ok, creating the mailmerge and sending as an attachment to the addresses in the used datatbase, the problem is the email itself is always blank. Is there a way to have text in the email as well as having the merged files sent as attachments?

Iwant to send our clients monthly statements which I have pretty much got down but it is a bit unprofessional just having a blank email with an attached file.

I'm using Office XP Pro.

Hope someone can help,

Thanks, Derek.

[macropod]

Hi Derek,

See: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/294694

[DerekScambler]

Hi,

Thanks macropod, I have already looked at that but it only really gives you the basics. What happens is I create the e-mailmerge and then send as attachment. This then sends a blank email from my Outlook account with the attached file, it doesn't even use my signature from Outlook.

What I want to do, ideally, would be to have a mailmerged document attached to a mailmerged email, but would settle for a generic message being displayed in the email body. Anything but blank really!

[macropod]

Hi Derek,

To have both a message and an attachment, a different approach is needed. It's explained in detail here: http://word.mvps.org/faqs/mailmerge/...ttachments.htm
The instructions assume Outlook is at least installed on your system, which it usually is if you have Office installed (you don't have to be using it for email purposes, though).

[DerekScambler]

Thanks for getting back to me again. I've had a look at the link and as I've never used macros before, it all looks a bit complicated to me. I'm not sure if that is going to do the job for me either.

We would be sending out 4-500 personalised invoices and it looks like I would need to have each invoice saved seperately so that I could attach it to the email. I see that it would pull the email address' from the data file but I presume I would then need to list all of the saved invoices in the data file next to the corresponding email address so that it could pull the info for the attachment from there?

Am I getting this right or would there be some way of attaching the individual pages of the original merged document that created the invoices?

[macropod]

Originally Posted by DerekScambler

Thanks for getting back to me again. I've had a look at the link and as I've never used macros before, it all looks a bit complicated to me.

It is till you get used to it.

I'm not sure if that is going to do the job for me either.

We would be sending out 4-500 personalised invoices and it looks like I would need to have each invoice saved seperately so that I could attach it to the email. I see that it would pull the email address' from the data file but I presume I would then need to list all of the saved invoices in the data file next to the corresponding email address so that it could pull the info for the attachment from there?

I think that's correct, but there are other macros about the web for splitting mailmerge documents into individual files, so that part can be done quite speedily too. See, for example:
http://www.gmayor.com/individual_merge_letters.htm

With a little bit of extra coding, you could have one process execute and, when it's complete, automatically start the next one. That part would require only four lines of code.

[DerekScambler]

Thanks for the lastest info. I had a look at the link and there is an add-on there that allows you split the mail merge and save the individual files as predefined names if you have them set up as a data field which I have tried out and it works. This way when I create the Directory I should be able to use that field again to import the data.

I haven't tried it all from start to finish to see if I have the finished article as I ran out of time at work.

I'll run through it all on Monday and let you know how I get on.

Thanks again

[macropod]

Hi Derek,

Here's a link to an addin that might do just what you want:
http://www.gmayor.com/MailMergeWithAttachments.htm

[DerekScambler]

This looks like it would be ideal as after spending the whole day yesterday and a couple of hours this morning creating several word and excel documents with all kinds of formulas to get everything in order I eventually got everything working....apart from.... it will only send attachments for the first 10 contacts. I created a test group of 17 contacts but there was no attahment after the 1st 10 so I don't know what is happening.

I only use Office XP so I presume that this add on, that certainly looks the business, won't work for me. I don't suppose you know if he made one for other versions?

Derek

[macropod]

Hi Derek,

That's the only add-in I've found so far.

With your process, the fault could be something as simple as a counter not updating, or a malformed attachment filepath/document name.

[DerekScambler]

I've checked all the file names etc in the test run and they are all ok which I thought they would be as they have all been generated from the same excel document so if it was down to a counter not updating (sorry I have no idea what this means ) is it possible that it could be a frequent problem? I wouldn't know until all the emails had sent (it took a while to do 17 never mind 400!) so wouldn't want to have to do that more than once, and I don't suppose our clients will want to receive multiple emails each month or is there something I can check to make sure they are updated before sending?

Thanks again for all your help, its much appreciated!