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Quick Guide: E-mail Merge

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Quick Guide: E-mail Merge

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While using Mail Merge for letters and envelopes can be very helpful in sharing your ministry with your contacts, sending more personalized e-mail messages can be an effective tool for communicating prayer needs and other quick updates. This tutorial guides you through creating a simple e-mail merge to a group of contacts. This tutorial was created using Microsoft Word 2007. For Word 2003, you may need to search for the buttons shown.

This topic covers how to send an e-mail merge, which sends a separate e-mail for each recipient. There is a separate topic for a Mass E-mail, which sends ONE e-mail message with multiple recipients.

Tutorial: E-mail Merge

Note about the way TntConnect handles email addresses for married contacts: If the husband and wife have separate 'preferred' email addresses, then TntConnect will generate a separate merge row for each (for example, "Dear Husband," and "Dear Wife,". But if there is only one preferred email, TntConnect will combine them into one row for the single email address: "Dear Husband and Wife,".

1.Select the group you want to send this e-mail message to. In this example, the Current Group is a list of contacts who receive regular prayer updates.

2.Select Group Actions | Create E-mail Mere

3.When the Mail Merge dialog box appears, change the document type to Form Letters (e-mail).

4.Press OK.

This opens Microsoft Word and send your contacts to be the source data for the merge. The status bar will say "Opening Document" but it is actually creating a New document.

5.Create your e-mail message.

6.Where you want the recipient's first name to appear, insert the merge code for Greeting.
a.Place cursor before the comma.
b.Press the <Insert Merge Field> button.
c.Select the Greeting field.
d.Press the <Insert> button.

7.Press the <Finish Mail Merge> button.

Select "Send e-mail Messages" from the menu. Word will open the merge box.

8.Write a subject line.
9.Press the <OK> button.

Microsoft Word will open your e-mail software and send the messages.

More on e-mail Merge

You cannot attach a document (such as a PDF newsletter) to an e-mail sent this way.

To send a newsletter, you could use the <Create Mass E-mail> feature. This will copy all of the e-mail addresses into your clipboard, and you then paste them into the Blind Copy of your message. Then compose your e-mail message and attach your newsletter. Unfortunately, using this method you will not be able to personalize the messages.

Menu Path: Group Actions | Create Mass E-mail

Log History for e-mail messages sent.

Once you press the start the merge process, you leave TntConnect and do not come back. To log the history for sending this e-mail message, return to TntConnect after sending the message and log the history.

Menu Path: Group Actions | Log Group History

You can modify the email greeting for any contact, or separate greetings for husband and wife, on the Address tab.

Read More

Send E-mail to One Contact




Comments on this Help Topic

Troy Wolbrink wrote re: Tutorial: E-mail Merge
on 1 Oct 2010 10:45 PM

Under the "Group" menu, you can click on "Create E-mail Merge".  This is a shortcut to steps 2 and 3.

Dennis Runner wrote re: Tutorial: E-mail Merge
on 6 Apr 2011 4:35 PM

what do I do? I followed the process. Within Word, it appears that it is sending it as it "rattles" off the names all the way through. However, since I included myself in that merge, I am not receiving anything. What do I do? Please help. I don't know if it is a TNT problem, Word problem, or an OE (operator error)? Thanks

Troy Wolbrink wrote re: Tutorial: E-mail Merge
on 12 Apr 2011 6:34 PM

DRunner, head over to Outlook and check out the "Outbox" and/or "Sent Items" folders.

beehofer wrote re: Tutorial: E-mail Merge
on 17 Nov 2011 9:59 AM

A personalized email with a PDF attachment is precisely what many people are looking for. I paid for a "mail merge toolkit" plugin from mapilab for MS Office which has worked for me. It allows me to create a mass email with a personalized message AND attach a document to that email. Please guys... you can add this feature too!

www.mapilab.com/.../mail_merge_toolkit.zip

sofi wrote re: Tutorial: E-mail Merge
on 23 May 2013 7:43 PM

I am facing the same problem as DRunner. I have followed all of the above steps, but there are no emails showing up in my outbox to be sent.

Troy Wolbrink wrote re: Tutorial: E-mail Merge
on 23 May 2013 11:43 PM

sofi, I'd suggest bring this up on the forums.  Be sure to explain what version of TntMPD, Windows/Mac, Word, etc so people have a context as to where you're coming from.  By putting it on the forums, more people will see it and be able to help.  --Troy

Keefe wrote re: Tutorial: E-mail Merge
on 30 May 2013 10:53 PM

I have had trouble with the e-mail merge with TNT ever since the change over to google. I cleaned out my Outlook then set it up to work with the new mail server, and I can still do e-mail merges with excel files, but when I try to do the e-mail merge with TNT the e-mails won't send because the e-mail addresses show up as "First_Name Last_Name" <e-mail_address>, which Outlook doesn't recognize and won't send.

Troy Wolbrink wrote re: Tutorial: E-mail Merge
on 1 Jun 2013 3:15 PM

Hi Keefe,  The next beta version of TntMPD (3.0.7) will have an option to "Include Display Name on Email Address" that you can turn off (when the merge type is "Form Letters (Email)").  Thanks for the feedback.  --Troy

Keefe wrote re: Tutorial: E-mail Merge
on 2 Jun 2013 12:32 PM

Great! When will the next beta be ready? Thanks!

Troy Wolbrink wrote re: Tutorial: E-mail Merge
on 5 Jun 2013 12:08 AM

It's available now.

Troy Wolbrink wrote re: Quick Guide: E-mail Merge
on 7 Nov 2013 11:45 PM

Tip:  Some issues can be avoided by starting up Outlook and minimizing it to the background while you do an e-mail merge.  --Troy

NicholasAlsop wrote re: Quick Guide: E-mail Merge
on 27 Jan 2016 2:32 PM

Is this process any different than using the Word feature in TNT to send a mail merge? I am having trouble with contacts who  have multiple email addresses. Word will give me the message that it wants semicolons instead of commas. How do I work around this?

Troy Wolbrink wrote re: Quick Guide: E-mail Merge
on 8 Jun 2016 9:01 PM

Hi Nicholas,  When you launch a mail merge from TNT, be sure to specify that you want to do an e-mail merge.  That way all email addresses are broken out into separate rows.

James Loewen wrote re: Quick Guide: E-mail Merge
on 29 Nov 2017 2:21 PM

A point to be made about mail merge to email with MSWord and MSOutlook for the Mac os system is that MSOutlook must be set as your preferred email client for MSWord to merge your emails to MSOutlook. If you haven't made this choice the option in the step 7 to send E-mail messages will be grey and inaccessible. Check out osxdaily.com/.../change-default-mail-app-mac for how to set Outlook as our preferred email client.

2Mikedill wrote re: Quick Guide: E-mail Merge
on 4 Nov 2019 5:07 PM

I always like to send my newsletter to married couples with both of them on the "TO:" line and the salutation written to both of them (ex: "Dear Bob and Susie,") I find it's a lot more personal that way and respects the marriage better. Is there a way TNT mail merge can auto-generate that setup?

Troy Wolbrink wrote re: Quick Guide: E-mail Merge
on 27 Nov 2019 11:15 PM

I've thought of that, but having one email address per outgoing email is a Microsoft Word limitation with their merge to email feature.

BeckyGrossmann wrote re: Quick Guide: E-mail Merge
on 1 Jun 2020 4:22 PM

So your guide for doing email merges hints at being able to personalize the emails.  However, it does not allow us to do this with individuals because it tells us to select the send email rather than edit individual documents.  The email goes out the same to everyone.  When I selected edit individual documents and saved the email contacts to an excel file, it sent out emails to each address but included all the messages to all of the recipients in everyone's message! I expected the section break between the messages to tell outlook to pair up each section with a new address so Ann would get Ann's message and only Ann's message, etc. down the line.  Is there a good way to be able to personalize/edit a form letter in an email merge?  I can't seem to find help on this.

Troy Wolbrink wrote re: Quick Guide: E-mail Merge
on 13 Jun 2020 12:14 AM

Hi Becky,  The "Edit Individual Documents" (I believe) will only work for printed mail merges.

wyeyou wrote re: Quick Guide: E-mail Merge
on 27 Jun 2020 3:23 AM

Hi Troy

Hope you can help me.  I have about 4 different email accounts on my MS Outlook 2016.  I am trying to do the email merge from only one of the accounts.  I set it to "send by default" on the account I want it to be sent from, but it always sends it from the same account.  Can TNTMPD be set up to send from different accounts?

Troy Wolbrink wrote re: Quick Guide: E-mail Merge
on 16 Jul 2020 3:23 AM

(TntMPD is now called "TntConnect".)  When TntConnect e-mail merges via Word, it's up to Word and Outlook how the email gets sent.  Look into your Outlook options.  Maybe check with Microsoft, or a Microsoft forums.  --Troy

Hawkinsinparis wrote re: Quick Guide: E-mail Merge
on 12 Oct 2020 8:32 AM

Hi Troy,

Your merge instructions are dated pretty far back.  I'm wondering if there have been any changes in merge capacity.  I'd like to do a personalized email with a pdf attachment.  Is that still impossible? (I use MS 365 for mac)

Thanks

Tom

Troy Wolbrink wrote re: Quick Guide: E-mail Merge
on 19 Oct 2020 10:12 PM

My hunch is that you still can't add an attachment to a e-mail merge from Word, but I haven't tested this in the last year or so.  This would be a good question on some Microsoft Office forum, perhaps.

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