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#1
Posted to microsoft.public.word.mailmerge.fields
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I'm hoping This is the Right Place
My company uses a program called Cactus which uses a Word Mail Merge
function to send letters to our clients. I have spoken to the technicians of the program and am assured that there is no setting for this in the system and that it is a Word function. The deal is - for a long time the Mail Merge of these letters would be sent as the body of the email. Now, they are sent as an attachment and not everyone can read them since they don't all use Microsoft Office and be able to open a Word attachment. Is there a setting in the Mail Merge function that tells the letter to go in as the email body instead of an attachment and if so where is it? Any help would be greatly appreciated - Jon |
#2
Posted to microsoft.public.word.mailmerge.fields
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I'm hoping This is the Right Place
My company uses a program called Cactus which uses a Word Mail Merge
function to send letters to our clients. I have spoken to the technicians of the program and am assured that there is no setting for this in the system and that it is a Word function. The deal is - for a long time the Mail Merge of these letters would be sent as the body of the email. Now, they are sent as an attachment and not everyone can read them since they don't all use Microsoft Office and be able to open a Word attachment. Is there a setting in the Mail Merge function that tells the letter to go in as the email body instead of an attachment and if so where is it? OK, it's difficult from what you're saying to understand what this means: I have spoken to the technicians of the program and am assured that there is no setting for this in the system and that it is a Word function. Assuming that what they are saying is that there is nothing in /their/ system that lets you define what format your e-mails should go out in (is that assumption correct?) then a. something in a part of your system that they do not control is determining what format to use b. something has changed. Yes, Word Mailmerge can merge to e-mail in one of three formats: c. Plain text: the content of your mail merge main document is rendered as plain text and inserted as the body of a plain text e-mail d. Attachment: the content of your mail merge main document is rendered as a Word document and attached to an e-mail that has a completely blank message body e. HTML: the content of your mail merge main document is rendered as a MIME format e-mail that will probably appear as the body of the message in some e-mail clients. Things that might have changed include: f. your default email package has been changed to one that does not support HTML (AFAIK you need to merge via the full Outlook to have HTML-format message bodies - no other email client does it) g. your Word mail merge main documents are set up with the output destination and format predefined, but a change in the way Word works now means that one or more of those definitions are discarded and some other default defintion (i.e. "use an attachment") is used. IMO both (f) and (g) are both possible, especially given one or two recent changes to Word, but it's difficult to know how to determine the cause. I wouldn't discount the possibility that "the technicians" are reassuring but wrong, either. Some starting points... a. are there any options in the Cactus system that let you specify the merge format, or the email client to use? b. who creates the word template/skeleton documents that you are using? yourselves/ c. can you check that your default mail program in Windows is still Outlook? d. forgetting about the cactus system altogether, what happens if you try to construct a test merge to e-mail, using HTML format (e.g. send it to yourself)? -- Peter Jamieson http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk "Jon" wrote in message ... My company uses a program called Cactus which uses a Word Mail Merge function to send letters to our clients. I have spoken to the technicians of the program and am assured that there is no setting for this in the system and that it is a Word function. The deal is - for a long time the Mail Merge of these letters would be sent as the body of the email. Now, they are sent as an attachment and not everyone can read them since they don't all use Microsoft Office and be able to open a Word attachment. Is there a setting in the Mail Merge function that tells the letter to go in as the email body instead of an attachment and if so where is it? Any help would be greatly appreciated - Jon |
#3
Posted to microsoft.public.word.mailmerge.fields
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I'm hoping This is the Right Place
Peter,
Thank you very much for your Reply. It really is appreciated. Your assumptions are correct with what I was saying in my previous post. The 'technicians I spoke to' does refer to Cactus Techs and they are telling me that their program - Cactus - does not control the way the letters are merged into Outlook. It's either Outlook itself or Word that dictates whether or not it's mergerd as an attachment or in the body of the email. Now, I haven't ever used Cactus before (I just got elected to fix this) so I am not sure where I am to look yet. My first thought after getting this info from Cactus is to look at how any 'merge' functionality in Word gets configured and I don't see any kind of check box or radio button or whatever where I can tell it to merge as an attachment or not. I don't see anything in Outlook either. That's using Office 2003 by the way. But, that's the question I am looking to have answered - where can I tell Word and/or Outlook to merge the letters into the body of the email. I'll again try to construct the test email and see what I get. It didn't work for me the first time so I'll go through and work on it again. No, I am not a Word expert either and have never used this function before - which is why I am here to ask questions. Again, thank you very much for responding to me - Jon "Peter Jamieson" wrote in message ... My company uses a program called Cactus which uses a Word Mail Merge function to send letters to our clients. I have spoken to the technicians of the program and am assured that there is no setting for this in the system and that it is a Word function. The deal is - for a long time the Mail Merge of these letters would be sent as the body of the email. Now, they are sent as an attachment and not everyone can read them since they don't all use Microsoft Office and be able to open a Word attachment. Is there a setting in the Mail Merge function that tells the letter to go in as the email body instead of an attachment and if so where is it? OK, it's difficult from what you're saying to understand what this means: I have spoken to the technicians of the program and am assured that there is no setting for this in the system and that it is a Word function. Assuming that what they are saying is that there is nothing in /their/ system that lets you define what format your e-mails should go out in (is that assumption correct?) then a. something in a part of your system that they do not control is determining what format to use b. something has changed. Yes, Word Mailmerge can merge to e-mail in one of three formats: c. Plain text: the content of your mail merge main document is rendered as plain text and inserted as the body of a plain text e-mail d. Attachment: the content of your mail merge main document is rendered as a Word document and attached to an e-mail that has a completely blank message body e. HTML: the content of your mail merge main document is rendered as a MIME format e-mail that will probably appear as the body of the message in some e-mail clients. Things that might have changed include: f. your default email package has been changed to one that does not support HTML (AFAIK you need to merge via the full Outlook to have HTML-format message bodies - no other email client does it) g. your Word mail merge main documents are set up with the output destination and format predefined, but a change in the way Word works now means that one or more of those definitions are discarded and some other default defintion (i.e. "use an attachment") is used. IMO both (f) and (g) are both possible, especially given one or two recent changes to Word, but it's difficult to know how to determine the cause. I wouldn't discount the possibility that "the technicians" are reassuring but wrong, either. Some starting points... a. are there any options in the Cactus system that let you specify the merge format, or the email client to use? b. who creates the word template/skeleton documents that you are using? yourselves/ c. can you check that your default mail program in Windows is still Outlook? d. forgetting about the cactus system altogether, what happens if you try to construct a test merge to e-mail, using HTML format (e.g. send it to yourself)? -- Peter Jamieson http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk "Jon" wrote in message ... My company uses a program called Cactus which uses a Word Mail Merge function to send letters to our clients. I have spoken to the technicians of the program and am assured that there is no setting for this in the system and that it is a Word function. The deal is - for a long time the Mail Merge of these letters would be sent as the body of the email. Now, they are sent as an attachment and not everyone can read them since they don't all use Microsoft Office and be able to open a Word attachment. Is there a setting in the Mail Merge function that tells the letter to go in as the email body instead of an attachment and if so where is it? Any help would be greatly appreciated - Jon |
#4
Posted to microsoft.public.word.mailmerge.fields
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I'm hoping This is the Right Place
I don't see any kind of check box or radio button or whatever where I can
tell it to merge as an attachment or not. I don't see anything in Outlook either. OK, if you mailmerge starting from Word, when you select the Merge to Email option, you get to specify a. the column in the data source to use as the email address b. the format (plain text, attachment, HTML) c. the subject (which is just a pice of plain text) If you experiment starting from Word 2003 (forgetting about Cactus for now) I suggest that you enable the Mailmerge toolbar via Word View-Toolbars. Then the first few buttons are concerned with the type of email you want to do, the data source, and inserting various types of field. Towards the right hand end of the toolbar, you should see optins for merging to email, file, and printer. (FWIW one of the great things about testing email stuff is that you can always email yourself). Have a look at that for now and if that's all straightforward, maybe we an look at the issue of how to get the cactus stuff to do what you need. Otherwise maybe you can try to say where you get stuck. -- Peter Jamieson http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk "Jon" wrote in message ... Peter, Thank you very much for your Reply. It really is appreciated. Your assumptions are correct with what I was saying in my previous post. The 'technicians I spoke to' does refer to Cactus Techs and they are telling me that their program - Cactus - does not control the way the letters are merged into Outlook. It's either Outlook itself or Word that dictates whether or not it's mergerd as an attachment or in the body of the email. Now, I haven't ever used Cactus before (I just got elected to fix this) so I am not sure where I am to look yet. My first thought after getting this info from Cactus is to look at how any 'merge' functionality in Word gets configured and I don't see any kind of check box or radio button or whatever where I can tell it to merge as an attachment or not. I don't see anything in Outlook either. That's using Office 2003 by the way. But, that's the question I am looking to have answered - where can I tell Word and/or Outlook to merge the letters into the body of the email. I'll again try to construct the test email and see what I get. It didn't work for me the first time so I'll go through and work on it again. No, I am not a Word expert either and have never used this function before - which is why I am here to ask questions. Again, thank you very much for responding to me - Jon "Peter Jamieson" wrote in message ... My company uses a program called Cactus which uses a Word Mail Merge function to send letters to our clients. I have spoken to the technicians of the program and am assured that there is no setting for this in the system and that it is a Word function. The deal is - for a long time the Mail Merge of these letters would be sent as the body of the email. Now, they are sent as an attachment and not everyone can read them since they don't all use Microsoft Office and be able to open a Word attachment. Is there a setting in the Mail Merge function that tells the letter to go in as the email body instead of an attachment and if so where is it? OK, it's difficult from what you're saying to understand what this means: I have spoken to the technicians of the program and am assured that there is no setting for this in the system and that it is a Word function. Assuming that what they are saying is that there is nothing in /their/ system that lets you define what format your e-mails should go out in (is that assumption correct?) then a. something in a part of your system that they do not control is determining what format to use b. something has changed. Yes, Word Mailmerge can merge to e-mail in one of three formats: c. Plain text: the content of your mail merge main document is rendered as plain text and inserted as the body of a plain text e-mail d. Attachment: the content of your mail merge main document is rendered as a Word document and attached to an e-mail that has a completely blank message body e. HTML: the content of your mail merge main document is rendered as a MIME format e-mail that will probably appear as the body of the message in some e-mail clients. Things that might have changed include: f. your default email package has been changed to one that does not support HTML (AFAIK you need to merge via the full Outlook to have HTML-format message bodies - no other email client does it) g. your Word mail merge main documents are set up with the output destination and format predefined, but a change in the way Word works now means that one or more of those definitions are discarded and some other default defintion (i.e. "use an attachment") is used. IMO both (f) and (g) are both possible, especially given one or two recent changes to Word, but it's difficult to know how to determine the cause. I wouldn't discount the possibility that "the technicians" are reassuring but wrong, either. Some starting points... a. are there any options in the Cactus system that let you specify the merge format, or the email client to use? b. who creates the word template/skeleton documents that you are using? yourselves/ c. can you check that your default mail program in Windows is still Outlook? d. forgetting about the cactus system altogether, what happens if you try to construct a test merge to e-mail, using HTML format (e.g. send it to yourself)? -- Peter Jamieson http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk "Jon" wrote in message ... My company uses a program called Cactus which uses a Word Mail Merge function to send letters to our clients. I have spoken to the technicians of the program and am assured that there is no setting for this in the system and that it is a Word function. The deal is - for a long time the Mail Merge of these letters would be sent as the body of the email. Now, they are sent as an attachment and not everyone can read them since they don't all use Microsoft Office and be able to open a Word attachment. Is there a setting in the Mail Merge function that tells the letter to go in as the email body instead of an attachment and if so where is it? Any help would be greatly appreciated - Jon |
#5
Posted to microsoft.public.word.mailmerge.fields
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I'm hoping This is the Right Place
Peter,
I did get Mail Merge to successfully send me an email with the Word document embedded in the body of the email rather than as an attachment. I will have to go take another look at how things are set up on the systems that use the Cactus program (there are 7 and they all send these letters and they all are sending them as attachments now) and see if I can find the setting for them to send them embedded rather than attached. Thank you very much for looking into this with me since I haven't ever used this kind of function in Word. Hopefully, I will be able to figure out what the deal is and have them sending them correctly again. Again, thank you very much - it really is appreciated, Jon "Peter Jamieson" wrote in message ... I don't see any kind of check box or radio button or whatever where I can tell it to merge as an attachment or not. I don't see anything in Outlook either. OK, if you mailmerge starting from Word, when you select the Merge to Email option, you get to specify a. the column in the data source to use as the email address b. the format (plain text, attachment, HTML) c. the subject (which is just a pice of plain text) If you experiment starting from Word 2003 (forgetting about Cactus for now) I suggest that you enable the Mailmerge toolbar via Word View-Toolbars. Then the first few buttons are concerned with the type of email you want to do, the data source, and inserting various types of field. Towards the right hand end of the toolbar, you should see optins for merging to email, file, and printer. (FWIW one of the great things about testing email stuff is that you can always email yourself). Have a look at that for now and if that's all straightforward, maybe we an look at the issue of how to get the cactus stuff to do what you need. Otherwise maybe you can try to say where you get stuck. -- Peter Jamieson http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk "Jon" wrote in message ... Peter, Thank you very much for your Reply. It really is appreciated. Your assumptions are correct with what I was saying in my previous post. The 'technicians I spoke to' does refer to Cactus Techs and they are telling me that their program - Cactus - does not control the way the letters are merged into Outlook. It's either Outlook itself or Word that dictates whether or not it's mergerd as an attachment or in the body of the email. Now, I haven't ever used Cactus before (I just got elected to fix this) so I am not sure where I am to look yet. My first thought after getting this info from Cactus is to look at how any 'merge' functionality in Word gets configured and I don't see any kind of check box or radio button or whatever where I can tell it to merge as an attachment or not. I don't see anything in Outlook either. That's using Office 2003 by the way. But, that's the question I am looking to have answered - where can I tell Word and/or Outlook to merge the letters into the body of the email. I'll again try to construct the test email and see what I get. It didn't work for me the first time so I'll go through and work on it again. No, I am not a Word expert either and have never used this function before - which is why I am here to ask questions. Again, thank you very much for responding to me - Jon "Peter Jamieson" wrote in message ... My company uses a program called Cactus which uses a Word Mail Merge function to send letters to our clients. I have spoken to the technicians of the program and am assured that there is no setting for this in the system and that it is a Word function. The deal is - for a long time the Mail Merge of these letters would be sent as the body of the email. Now, they are sent as an attachment and not everyone can read them since they don't all use Microsoft Office and be able to open a Word attachment. Is there a setting in the Mail Merge function that tells the letter to go in as the email body instead of an attachment and if so where is it? OK, it's difficult from what you're saying to understand what this means: I have spoken to the technicians of the program and am assured that there is no setting for this in the system and that it is a Word function. Assuming that what they are saying is that there is nothing in /their/ system that lets you define what format your e-mails should go out in (is that assumption correct?) then a. something in a part of your system that they do not control is determining what format to use b. something has changed. Yes, Word Mailmerge can merge to e-mail in one of three formats: c. Plain text: the content of your mail merge main document is rendered as plain text and inserted as the body of a plain text e-mail d. Attachment: the content of your mail merge main document is rendered as a Word document and attached to an e-mail that has a completely blank message body e. HTML: the content of your mail merge main document is rendered as a MIME format e-mail that will probably appear as the body of the message in some e-mail clients. Things that might have changed include: f. your default email package has been changed to one that does not support HTML (AFAIK you need to merge via the full Outlook to have HTML-format message bodies - no other email client does it) g. your Word mail merge main documents are set up with the output destination and format predefined, but a change in the way Word works now means that one or more of those definitions are discarded and some other default defintion (i.e. "use an attachment") is used. IMO both (f) and (g) are both possible, especially given one or two recent changes to Word, but it's difficult to know how to determine the cause. I wouldn't discount the possibility that "the technicians" are reassuring but wrong, either. Some starting points... a. are there any options in the Cactus system that let you specify the merge format, or the email client to use? b. who creates the word template/skeleton documents that you are using? yourselves/ c. can you check that your default mail program in Windows is still Outlook? d. forgetting about the cactus system altogether, what happens if you try to construct a test merge to e-mail, using HTML format (e.g. send it to yourself)? -- Peter Jamieson http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk "Jon" wrote in message ... My company uses a program called Cactus which uses a Word Mail Merge function to send letters to our clients. I have spoken to the technicians of the program and am assured that there is no setting for this in the system and that it is a Word function. The deal is - for a long time the Mail Merge of these letters would be sent as the body of the email. Now, they are sent as an attachment and not everyone can read them since they don't all use Microsoft Office and be able to open a Word attachment. Is there a setting in the Mail Merge function that tells the letter to go in as the email body instead of an attachment and if so where is it? Any help would be greatly appreciated - Jon |
#6
Posted to microsoft.public.word.mailmerge.fields
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I'm hoping This is the Right Place
OK, I would guess that the merge to email settings are defined in the Word
document - otherwise, at least two of them would have to be set by whatever opens the Word documents (i.e. the column to use as the source of the e-mail addresses, and the fixed subject line. If Cactus sets those I would be quite surprised if it does not also set the format, but perhaps it does not, relies on the default, and the default has changed (I don't think it has - I'm just speculating) -- Peter Jamieson http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk "Jon" wrote in message ... Peter, I did get Mail Merge to successfully send me an email with the Word document embedded in the body of the email rather than as an attachment. I will have to go take another look at how things are set up on the systems that use the Cactus program (there are 7 and they all send these letters and they all are sending them as attachments now) and see if I can find the setting for them to send them embedded rather than attached. Thank you very much for looking into this with me since I haven't ever used this kind of function in Word. Hopefully, I will be able to figure out what the deal is and have them sending them correctly again. Again, thank you very much - it really is appreciated, Jon "Peter Jamieson" wrote in message ... I don't see any kind of check box or radio button or whatever where I can tell it to merge as an attachment or not. I don't see anything in Outlook either. OK, if you mailmerge starting from Word, when you select the Merge to Email option, you get to specify a. the column in the data source to use as the email address b. the format (plain text, attachment, HTML) c. the subject (which is just a pice of plain text) If you experiment starting from Word 2003 (forgetting about Cactus for now) I suggest that you enable the Mailmerge toolbar via Word View-Toolbars. Then the first few buttons are concerned with the type of email you want to do, the data source, and inserting various types of field. Towards the right hand end of the toolbar, you should see optins for merging to email, file, and printer. (FWIW one of the great things about testing email stuff is that you can always email yourself). Have a look at that for now and if that's all straightforward, maybe we an look at the issue of how to get the cactus stuff to do what you need. Otherwise maybe you can try to say where you get stuck. -- Peter Jamieson http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk "Jon" wrote in message ... Peter, Thank you very much for your Reply. It really is appreciated. Your assumptions are correct with what I was saying in my previous post. The 'technicians I spoke to' does refer to Cactus Techs and they are telling me that their program - Cactus - does not control the way the letters are merged into Outlook. It's either Outlook itself or Word that dictates whether or not it's mergerd as an attachment or in the body of the email. Now, I haven't ever used Cactus before (I just got elected to fix this) so I am not sure where I am to look yet. My first thought after getting this info from Cactus is to look at how any 'merge' functionality in Word gets configured and I don't see any kind of check box or radio button or whatever where I can tell it to merge as an attachment or not. I don't see anything in Outlook either. That's using Office 2003 by the way. But, that's the question I am looking to have answered - where can I tell Word and/or Outlook to merge the letters into the body of the email. I'll again try to construct the test email and see what I get. It didn't work for me the first time so I'll go through and work on it again. No, I am not a Word expert either and have never used this function before - which is why I am here to ask questions. Again, thank you very much for responding to me - Jon "Peter Jamieson" wrote in message ... My company uses a program called Cactus which uses a Word Mail Merge function to send letters to our clients. I have spoken to the technicians of the program and am assured that there is no setting for this in the system and that it is a Word function. The deal is - for a long time the Mail Merge of these letters would be sent as the body of the email. Now, they are sent as an attachment and not everyone can read them since they don't all use Microsoft Office and be able to open a Word attachment. Is there a setting in the Mail Merge function that tells the letter to go in as the email body instead of an attachment and if so where is it? OK, it's difficult from what you're saying to understand what this means: I have spoken to the technicians of the program and am assured that there is no setting for this in the system and that it is a Word function. Assuming that what they are saying is that there is nothing in /their/ system that lets you define what format your e-mails should go out in (is that assumption correct?) then a. something in a part of your system that they do not control is determining what format to use b. something has changed. Yes, Word Mailmerge can merge to e-mail in one of three formats: c. Plain text: the content of your mail merge main document is rendered as plain text and inserted as the body of a plain text e-mail d. Attachment: the content of your mail merge main document is rendered as a Word document and attached to an e-mail that has a completely blank message body e. HTML: the content of your mail merge main document is rendered as a MIME format e-mail that will probably appear as the body of the message in some e-mail clients. Things that might have changed include: f. your default email package has been changed to one that does not support HTML (AFAIK you need to merge via the full Outlook to have HTML-format message bodies - no other email client does it) g. your Word mail merge main documents are set up with the output destination and format predefined, but a change in the way Word works now means that one or more of those definitions are discarded and some other default defintion (i.e. "use an attachment") is used. IMO both (f) and (g) are both possible, especially given one or two recent changes to Word, but it's difficult to know how to determine the cause. I wouldn't discount the possibility that "the technicians" are reassuring but wrong, either. Some starting points... a. are there any options in the Cactus system that let you specify the merge format, or the email client to use? b. who creates the word template/skeleton documents that you are using? yourselves/ c. can you check that your default mail program in Windows is still Outlook? d. forgetting about the cactus system altogether, what happens if you try to construct a test merge to e-mail, using HTML format (e.g. send it to yourself)? -- Peter Jamieson http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk "Jon" wrote in message ... My company uses a program called Cactus which uses a Word Mail Merge function to send letters to our clients. I have spoken to the technicians of the program and am assured that there is no setting for this in the system and that it is a Word function. The deal is - for a long time the Mail Merge of these letters would be sent as the body of the email. Now, they are sent as an attachment and not everyone can read them since they don't all use Microsoft Office and be able to open a Word attachment. Is there a setting in the Mail Merge function that tells the letter to go in as the email body instead of an attachment and if so where is it? Any help would be greatly appreciated - Jon |
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