Mail Merge

[TC grad student]

I am graduate student in technical communication who is working on a project
to streamline the distribution process for a friend's literary magazine.

We want to send individualized e-mails to all the bookstores who currently
carry her magazine. These e-mails would draw information from database, like
the bookstore's name and how many copies of the magazine they typically
purchase.

I am looking for information about how to do this with Outlook, and
wondering which Microsoft program would be best to use as a database (Excel
or Access?). I'd also like the email message to appear as interactive PDF,
meaning I want the message to have a visually attractive, stable design from
computer to computer with text including fields connected to a database with
each bookstore's individual information.

I hope this is clear, and I do appreciate anyone's attempt to answer my
complex question.

 

[Roady [MVP]]

If you want a database solution; go for Access as Excel isn't a database
solution.

Mail formats cannot be in pdf-format. Plain Text, HTML and Rich Text are the
only supported formats and in most cases RTF is being transformed in to
HTML.

As non of the mail clients are supporting the full HTML and CSS
specifications, it is impossible to get a stable layout. The closest you can
get is to cross reference which specifications are supported amongst the
largest mail clients and only use those properties in your design.

Interactive is a no-go for emails as it would be a major security risk if
all sorts of scripting was allowed.

Go for the obvious; use a mail merge with the current info and provide a
link in the email to go to their own interactive portal (web page) for more
information. This web page can then be database driven; MS Access, MySQL, MS
SQL (Express), your pick really.