Editing messages In order to help PostCast enter data from your table within the e-mail message, it is necessary to follow several elementary rules. See the figure below: Every element of the e-mail message can contain table data. Thus can you assess a corresponding table value into the spaces: Subject, From, Attach, HTML, To and Message Text. To Field This field should contain the name of the table column wherein your e-mail addresses are entered. The program will set up field names automatically if it contains the 'e-mail' or 'e-mail' string. Before you start sending messages, make sure that you had used the 'To' field to select your e-mail column name. The PostCast E-Mail Merge window consists of four main parts: Message Fields Contains Subject, From, Attach, To, HTML fields. Table Fields Contains all table column names. Message Text Contains your e-mail text. Current Table Display of the table whose data you want to use. It displays the table selected from the 'Change table' toolbar combo box. There are three ways to define table fields: If the program should import table data from the table into your e-mail messages, it is essential to enter the field name in between brackets - []. 1. If you have a column in a table named E-Mail, for example, enter [E-Mail] in your message section where you want the program to insert the corresponding table datum. 2. Position the pointer in the message text in such a way as to define the field name. Then double click the field name from the table Fields list at the left side of the program. The program will automatically enter [Field Name] in your text. 3. use the drag and drop operation. Click the field name. Without releasing the left mouse key, drag it to the point where you would like to define the field from the table. This is the only way to define fields within Attach, as well as the HTML in a window part: Example1: define table field within Subject. Example2: define table field within Attachment part of the message. Important If you define a table field within your e-mail message, the program will enter an empty string if the field does not possess any value. In other words, if a client has no phone number in the Phone column, while you had already entered within the message: "Your Phone Number: [Phone]", the result will be "Your Phone Number: ". Where you can define fields? The corresponding table value can be imported to: Subject, From, Attach, HTML, To and Message Text. Therefore, not only in the message body, but anywhere you believe data import is required. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Example Let us assume that you want to send some kind of report to your clients. Here is how the data should be entered into the table: Last NameFirst NameE-mailReportFile ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- JohnsonRickrjohn@oabs.netc:\\report_1.doc SmithGeorgegsmith@renaaw.comc:\\report_2.doc 1. Open the E-mail Merge window and click the Report File from the Table Fields list. Drag without releasing the left mouse pointer to the Attach field in the window, then release the mouse pointer. You will notice that you have entered [ReportFile] into the Attach field. This is enough for PostCast to know that it will have to attach a file to each message, one whose path had been defined in the ReportFile column. 2. Similarly, drag First Name from the Table Fields list to the Subject text box. [First Name] will be entered. 3. Click the Subject text box and add: ',here is your report' Here is what it should look like: You have just set up the program to send different reports to each client separately. The person from the first table record will receive a message with a "Rick, here is your report" Subject line. The person from the second table record will get a different, "George, here is your report" Subject. Everybody will have his/her preliminary report, prepared and saved as a .doc file. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Attachments, HTML messages Signature, Text from File Set Priority Testing Sending messages Mail sending options Advanced sending options Exercise 4: Send personalized e-mail See Also: Extracting data from the web forms Mail Server Execute CGI Message Tags Execute Program Message Tags Scheduler