Template for Multiple Quotes

[lorr1e1]

Hi



I hope someone can help.

I work in a forklift company, we currently send quotes via email basically copy and past the forklift specification and attach pictures normally several to show different shots of the product, which is a slow process having to dig out past quotes and copy terms and conditions whatever is relevant to the new quote.

We want to create something more professional if at all possible. We have a large quote coming up and will need something that has product spec in one column and the related picture opposite.

I'm not sure whether just a table or column will suffice, can anyone help with this as this one in particular will very long?

I just wanted to pick peoples brains here to see if anyone use something or may even have heard or seen quoting software, or even to suggest that i do the above.

Thanks for your input.

[gmayor]

There are a number of ways of doing this. All will require some preparation, but once you have done that preparation the next quote is going to be much more simple.

There are three issues that need to be addressed:

1. Your post states that you paste the specification and then include several pictures. Later you say that you want two columns with the spec in one column and the picture (singular) in the other. That doesn't appear to compute. Do you want one spec and several pictures or one spec and one picture alongside?
2. How much specification text is involved and do you have the pictures stored on file or only available from old quotes to copy and paste?
3. How many trucks are there to choose from?

The choices seem to be some sort of mail merge, or a custom application dedicated to the process. Both would require a data source that holds all the data about the trucks from which you can select the required items.

Take a look at http://www.gmayor.com/photo_gallery_template.html which doesn't do what you want, but gives you an insight into what I had in mind with respect to picking items and inserting them into a table.

If you want to do it manually then use a two column table. Incidentally if you start with a page with a very wide left (or right) margin (leaving less than half the width of the page available) and set the aforementioned template to display the images 1 across. It will create a narrow single column table containing the images (loaded from disc). It is then a simple matter to reset the margin and add another column to the table for the descriptions.

[lorr1e1]

well the spec we quote could be as long as the page the text would also have to incluode the terms and conditions and what purchase option they are looking for which could include lease purcahse, outright purchase or hire and obviously relevent text for that. My boss wants to have the spec for each truck sit directly next to the picture becuase this next one is huge and if we are going to include 20 images in an email using our current method it can be hard for the customer to pick out the correct truck.

i'm thinking some sort of diagram or family tree type of layout (thinking out aloud here)

the major problem here is which would attach several shots of the forklift for each spec or truck so they can get an overall view of it so thats why i say this next one will be huge.

[gmayor]

Don't even think of including 20 images in an e-mail message. It will produce a huge file size that could cause major problems when you try and e-mail it.

The best way to deal with such a large document is to upload it to the internet - preferably to your own web space, but if not that to a private 'cloud' based location e.g. dropbox or onedrive and provide the link to that location. I would save the document as PDF format in one of those locations.

The document itself is fairly straightforward, use a table to lay out the page. It is how much effort you want to put into automation that is the real issue and whether you want someone to create a template for you.

[lorr1e1]

yes but i still need to create a template, i think the pictures would have to be mini in size but attached the larger sized ones.

we just need a proper way of quoting large quantities of trucks, i know businesses would have software for this purpose but we don't really have anything that is simple enough to set up.