Need some Mail Merge / Outlook help

[scotty2hotty]

Hey guys, was hoping someone way smarter than me could help me out here.

I have a newsletter type document that is in Word format. I need to populate this document with data from an Excel spreadsheet then mass mail each custom newsletter to each contact through Outlook.

The problem I run into is that the Word document doesn't maintain its format when I start the email merge process. What is the easiest way to correct this?

- Convert the document to HTML, then merge?
- Convert the document to PDF, then merge?
- Something else?

Thanks, collective CP wisdom!

[photon]

Convert the doc to HTML (meaning discard the Word doc entirely and craft a new HTML email message from scratch).

The HTML from a Word doc is beyond brutal, you'll just make everyone on the mailing list hate you (more than just being on the mailing list).

But I don't know if you can mail merge in Outlook from a straight HTML file or email.

How big is the mailing list? There's apps and sites out there that do this sort of thing as well, if the list is of any significant size ISPs can get annoyed by this kind of activity.

And an service better suited to it will result in far less issues. If the email isn't coming from the correct IP address some recipient email servers will at best bounce the email for example, or removing invalid email addresses, or not having your emails held because they're not coming from a valid email server, etc etc. For a big list this stuff is a PITA and sometimes better to just pay for a service that handles all the headaches.