# Sending Newsletter via Email w/ MS Publisher



## IbisRH (Oct 2, 2006)

The nonprof I work at wants to send a short version of their newsletter via email. This short version will have the title of the articles with one sentence explaining what the article's about and then a link to the full article on our website. I began using MS Publisher and their "email templates" to design the short version. The problem that I ran into is that if I use the "send to email" option on Publisher and then the recipient forwards the email the original "publisher" message gets all messed up. It works fine if I save the Publisher file as a JPEG, but then the hyperlinks to our site don't work. Has anyone run into this problem and do you have any solutions?

We're trying to get this out tomorrow morning, so any help you could give ASAP would be greatly appreciated!

--Shannon


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## Zazula (Apr 27, 2006)

The actual concern, Shannon, is why the email from MS Publisher gets messed up when forwarded. Do the recipients have Publisher installed or not? Maybe they do, but maybe not. Or maybe they have Publisher 2003 and you have placed WordArt objects in Publisher 2000. The list of glitches due to incompatibilities is endless.

So, the real workaround is to save Publisher's email in a format that (1) would be independent of the recipients' configuration, and (2) would allow for functioning hyperlinks. I would suggest primarily mht and pdf, and secondarily doc. Please read the following articles (and do not hesitate to ask for further information or clarifications):

How to save your publication as a Web Archive in Publisher and share it in e-mail

How to create a PDF file in Publisher and How to configure Acrobat Distiller to work with Publisher 2003

How to share a Publisher file with a user who does not have Publisher installed


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## IbisRH (Oct 2, 2006)

Zazula,

Thanks for the response. You are completely right about people not having Publisher installed. The thing is with Publisher 2003 they have an option to send out a newsletter, invitation, etc. via email. As I said earlier the file sends out fine to the original recipient, it's just if they wanted to forward it to someone that things get screwy. 

What we're trying to do is make a flashier short version of the newsletter (i.e. formatting text into boxes, adding in graphics, etc. in the actual email message and then attaching the full newsletter as a PDF.) In the past we simply sent it as a really plain email with no graphics, extra formatting (beyond hyperlinks) etc. But we figured we'd try to snazz it up and since we're a nonprof and only send the newsletter out 4 times a year we figured we could get around using a pay service since I found this option on Publisher. I figured there was probably a 50-50 chance that it would actually work knowing Microsoft. I have a feeling that it's one of those options that Microsoft recently added to this version to give people the false hope that they could create a fancy email message (like a pay service i.e. Convio, My Emma, etc.) when in actuality the program's not that sophisticated.

Quick question though, do you know quickly how to get hyperlinks created in Publisher to come through when you use Acrobat Distiller? I know I just saw something in the past two weeks that said how to do it, but for the life of me I can't find the article now!

Thanks!

--Shannon


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## Zazula (Apr 27, 2006)

Shannon, to the best of my knowledge, I am not aware that you have to set the Acrobat Distiller to a specific configuration for MS Publisher hyperlinks to go through. I know this is true, however, when we are talking about MS Word/Excel hyperlinks through the use of the PDFMaker plug-in. PDFMaker is a plug-in that gets installed by Acrobat versions 5, 6 & 7, and enables one-click PDF generation from the currently active document. By using the PDFMaker, hyperlinks in a Word document remain clickable hyperlinks in the resulting PDF. Moreover, bookmarks in Word become bookmarks in the PDF, which also become clickable entries in Acrobat’s or Reader’s Bookmarks tab. And, Word’s table of contents and indexes also become clickable and add entries to the Bookmarks tab (thus making navigation of longer PDFs easier). For hyperlink preservation through the use of PDFMaker for the conversion, I believe in the open document you go Acrobat > Change Conversion Settings > Office tab.

Now, regarding your primary headache, I would personally experiment a bit with *mht*. I made the following test: I opened Outlook Express. I had some mht files. I opened one of them (they open in IE), and went Edit > Select All > Copy. I went back to the OE and created a new e-mail message. I pressed Paste. The contents of the mht file were looking exactly as they were supposed to. And, since they were in OE, they were ready to be sent as an e-mail. If for any reason this won't work for you, attach a sample newsletter (without actual content, only the elements you need preserved).


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