Mass Email Tool Guide - Using the Tool - 2. Creating PDF Memos (Word)

Overview

You'll use the Mass Email Memo Template to create customized PDF memos pulling from the information you entered into the Mass Email Tool. This document will walk you through each step of this file.

Note: We strongly recommend using this template file to create your PDFs. However, if you must use an existing letterhead file and want to add the macro into that file, refer to the Mass Email Tool Guide - Additional Information document for instructions on that process. Some usability features will be missing in this method, but the resulting PDF files will be the same.

First, open the UW-Madison Mass Email Memo Template file (Microsoft Word Macro-Enabled Document) from the folder where you extracted it after downloading.

The Mass Email Memo Template has two buttons towards the top right.

• Double-click for help - double-click this button to launch the Mass Email Tool Guide in your default browser.
• Double-click to create PDFs - double-click this button once you've finished setting up your memo to run the macro to create the PDF memos.

These buttons will not appear in the PDF memos generated by the macro.

Click to enlarge image

Process

Update the Memo

The Mass Email Memo Template comes pre-configured to pull in the default fields from the Mass Email Tool and also has the macro to create PDF memo files built in. We can't anticipate the many letterhead designs used by units across campus though, so you'll need to update the memo to match your unit's letterhead. In most cases, that should just be a matter of copy/pasting the headers and footers from your unit's letterhead over the placeholders in the template. We expect most users are more familiar with editing a Word document than working with Office macros.

Set up the Mail Merge

To link the memo template to the information you entered into the Mass Email Tool, go to the Mailings tab in the Word ribbon, then click the Select Recipients button and select Use an existing list...

Next, navigate to your Mass Email Tool file and select Open.

In the Select Table window that appears, be sure to select the Mail Merge (read-only) sheet.

If you added additional columns to the Mass Email Tool that you want to include in your memos, you may insert those merge fields as usual now.

Verify the Mail Merge

After linking your mail merge recipients to your Mass Email Tool, verify that everything looks correct by previewing the mail merge.

In the Mailings tab, activate the Highlight Merge Fields option. This will highlight all mail merge fields in gray so you can verify all the appropriate fields are set up to pull from your Mass Email Tool.

Next, activate the Preview Results option. This will display the actual data from your Mass Email Tool within the memo so you can verify all of the information is pulling in correctly. You can use the Next/Previous Record arrows in the Preview Results section to review rows one by one, or click the Last Record arrow to verify that the mail merge recognizes all of the rows that you expect.

Create PDFs

Double-click the "Double-click to create PDFs" button and follow the prompts. The Create PDFs macro takes care of this part for you.

In the next step you'll go back to the Mass Email Tool to send the emails and memos you've created.