Easy-To-Make HTML Email, Using Publisher 2003

by Linda F. Johnson, M.A., MOS

Up until now, I have never recommended Publisher for much except simple business cards and newsletters created for printing purposes.  When people asked me what I thought of Publisher as a web design/html tool, I simply replied “Yuck!”  I feel you should use the right tool for the job, and up until Publisher 2003 came out, I didn’t see much use for it, for anything other than creating simple stuff to print.

However, I’ve changed my mind.  I’m pretty impressed with Publisher’s new html email tools for creating email newsletters, ads, announcements, etc.  It makes the process of creating html email about as simple as I’ve ever seen.  (I’m still not convinced anyone should use Publisher to create web pages, but for html email, I give it a definite thumbs up.)

Here’s a little tutorial to get you started.  Publisher makes this so easy and straightforward, I doubt you will need more than this starter tutorial to create some great email.

Step One, creating the mail using Publisher’s templates.

1. Open Publisher and click on “Web-Sites and Email” in the Task Pane on the left.  When the “Web-Sites and Email” list expands, click on “Email”, then click on the various email sub-categories to display sample templates on the right.
2. For this tutorial, I chose “Newsletter” from the list on the left, then chose “Studio Newsletter Email” from the choices on the right.  (You should do the same if you want to follow this tutorial step by step.)  Note that you only need to choose a template that is somewhat similar to what you want, because you can customize it in many ways so you aren’t stuck with the default colors, layout, graphics, etc.
3. Once you’ve chosen your template, Publisher builds it for you and inserts your default “Personal Information” and displays the newsletter on the right, which looks something like this:

4. Go to the Zoom dropdown on your toolbar at the top and choose “Page Width” so you can see the information more clearly.
5. You will see that some information is filled in, based on what you have in your Personal Information Profile.  (To see what’s in there and to edit or add to it, go to the Edit menu and choose “Personal Information”).  Along with this, there are placeholders for other parts of the newsletter where you can replace what’s there with your own data and pictures.  Some of these placeholders include Wizards.  For example, find the logo placeholder which looks like this:

Right click on it and choose “Wizard for this object” and notice the options you see in your Task Pane on the left.  You can use one of Publisher’s pre-made logos (which are pretty basic) or you can insert your own logo if you have one.

6. Click on “Logo Options” at the top of the Task Pane, then click on “Inserted Picture” below that, then click on the button that says “Choose Picture” and browse to find your logo or any picture you want to use.  The picture will be automatically resized to fit within the logo placeholder (and you can manually resize it by using the resizing handles on the picture.)

7. Click and drag to highlight the text “Newsletter Title” and type whatever title you want.  Do the same with the “Lead Story Headline”, then highlight the sample text below that and either type in your own story, or copy some text from another document and paste it in there.

NOTE:  If you add a large amount of data and paste it into that box, you may get this message:

This is asking you if you want to use Autoflow.  Autoflow will continue your text into other text boxes in the newsletter, as needed, prompting you each time to ask if this is what you want done.  Click Yes and you will be prompted, asking you if you want to add the remaining text to the next text box on the page, click Yes again.  Depending on the size of your text boxes and how much text you are pasting, you may be prompted again.  Publisher assumes you don’t want to enlarge this text box, so it moves the overflowing data to the next one. However, you can choose “No” and just manually resize the text boxes to fit more into them.

8. Notice the box below the text that says “More details”.  Let’s say your newsletter only includes the beginning of the article and you want people to go to your website for the rest.  Highlight the text “More details” and right click on it and choose “Hyperlink” and you can insert your web page URL in the Address box, so readers can click this link to jump to that web page.
9. Right click on one of the pictures and choose “Change Picture”.  You will see you have options to insert a picture from “file” (which means one you have stored in your computer or on a disk), from “scanner or camera” and “Clip Art”.  Choose Clip Art and you will see your Clip Art pane on the left. 

10.     Type a keyword in the “Search for” box at the top and click Go and you will be presented with some choices.  Click on the one you want to insert.

11.     Notice, on the newsletter template I chose, there’s a text box at the bottom with this info:

This can be easily customized by right clicking on “click here” and adding a hyperlink to an unsubscribe form on your website and changing the email text to reflect what you want and right clicking on that and inserting a mailto: hyperlink.

12.     Click on the black dropdown arrow at the top of the Task Pane on the left and choose Publication Designs

You can then click on any of the designs presented to quickly change to another one of Publisher’s pre-made templates.

13.     And, you can choose “Background” from the list shown above, to choose a new background color/graphic for your newsletter.

14.     If there are any text boxes or picture placeholders that you do not want to use, simply right click on them and choose “Delete Object”.

15.     Play around with all the different objects and choices and don’t forget to explore all the options in the Task Pane and your right-click menus.  Also, try using some of the features you see on the Objects toolbar to the left of your Task Pane.

Step Two, sending the email

1. Once you are happy with how the email looks, save the file.  Then go to the File menu and choose “Send E-Mail”, then “Send This Page as Message”

2. An email header will be added to the top of your newsletter where you can add the email addresses and subject line.
3. Then, simply click on the Send button and you are done.  I recommend you try sending this sample one you just made.  Just put your own email address in the To line and send it to yourself so you can see how nice it looks when it arrives.

Like I said, this is just a “starter” tutorial, but I’m sure you can find LOTS more ways to customize these emails.  I think Publisher 2003 does a great job with this.

Happy emailing.  And if you want to learn more about using Publisher (versions 2000, 2002, or 2003), I have Publisher online classes and ebooks available at my website, here:
http://www.personal-computer-tutor.com/services.htm

Linda

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