OK, I can't figure out how to do what I want without a lot of work. Should be easier with computers now days.

Here is what I want to do:

I promised to help a missionary living in the Congo get out his newsletter to churches. I have the PDF that he sent me with his update. I need to send one to each church that sponsors him. Now here is the problem, he needs each newsletter to say at the bottom: "Thank You for your donation of $xxx last month." Each church donates a different amount and could give more/less each month than the other.

I can edit the pdf and save dozens of different copies with the churches name, then create that many different emails and make sure that the appropriate saved pdf is attached and sent to the correct church. I see this as very time consuming when there are between 50 and 100 that need customized this way.

This newsletter we resorted to printing them, writing on them by hand and sending them snail mail.

There has to be a better way.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Kirk

<Kirk_Dickinson@adobeforums.com> wrote in message
news:3c05b35b.-1@webcrossing.la2eafNXanI...
> OK, I can't figure out how to do what I want without a lot of work. Should
> be easier with computers now days.
>
> Here is what I want to do:
>
> I promised to help a missionary living in the Congo get out his newsletter
> to churches. I have the PDF that he sent me with his update. I need to
> send one to each church that sponsors him. Now here is the problem, he
> needs each newsletter to say at the bottom: "Thank You for your donation
> of $xxx last month." Each church donates a different amount and could give
> more/less each month than the other.
>
> I can edit the pdf and save dozens of different copies with the churches
> name, then create that many different emails and make sure that the
> appropriate saved pdf is attached and sent to the correct church. I see
> this as very time consuming when there are between 50 and 100 that need
> customized this way.
>
> This newsletter we resorted to printing them, writing on them by hand and
> sending them snail mail.
>
> There has to be a better way.
>
> Any ideas?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Kirk

I came across this which maybe able to help. There may be other tools out
there that do the same thing. Otherwise I guess you could do it in Word and
then output to pdf

http://www.pureforms.com/Products/PF...printmerge.htm

Bill

Why not just make his "letter" into an email? Take the text and put it into emails. Change the amounts and churches there.

An easier way, if you have the software, is to use InDesign or Microsoft Word and do a mail merge with specific fields and values.

Check the help files for the programs you have to do this.

That way you would maintain a database and it would automatically update when you output the letters or emails.

Why not just make his "letter" into an email? Take the text and put it
into emails. Change the amounts and churches there.




The entire reason for doing it PDF is to maintain exact formatting. Your way would be easier though.

We have the addresses and emails in a database and could do a merge, but want the merged values to end up in the PDF and then the PDF to get mailed to the appropriate churches.

Maybe it isn't possible without serious development.

Thanks,

Kirk

addresses and emails in a database and could do a merge, but want the
merged values to end up in the PDF




I have never done this, so it may not work...

Create a report from your database, with the unique fields going into the report in an appropriate spot, and simply use the PDF printer for the output

That would create your document... emailing the correct one to the correct organization would be a different issue

The entire reason for doing it PDF is to maintain exact formatting




That would be nice but one thing to be aware of, some email clients encode the PDF's to make the transfer faster. When it hits the other side and the encoding id removed, a lot of the times the file will be corrupt.

Email is not a recommended way to transfer PDF's. More info can be found in the FAQ's.

.. emailing the correct one to the correct organization would be a different
issue




:-) Exactly. That is one reason why I am not excited about doing it manually.

Kirk

Email is not a recommended way to transfer PDF's. More info can be found
in the FAQ's.




Please explain this further. I have been emailing PDF's for years. We have a small ad agency and all our ads go out to magazines as PDF's and most of them are emailed. A few get ftp'd. Never seen any problems with corruption.

I will read the FAQ.

Kirk

I just took a look in MS Access, and it is possible to create a report and select the Adobe PDF as the output (but, I did not actually go all the way through the process, so I don't know if it is possible to assign a file name automatically) but I don't see any way to set the output to email (may be possible, but since I've never tried to use Access for that, I've never looked for a way to send the output to email)

I know there are email products designed for mass mailings... but since I've never used any (just Outlook @work and O-Express @home... and no mass mail for either one) I don't know of a product that will allow you to send a different attachment to each person in the mailing list

In THEORY I can "see" a product that would allow you to enter a file name in each person's profile, and then when you do a mass mailing the software will send the email AND the named attachment... but that is only theory, since I do not do mass mailings

I'm sure there is a place (or many vendor sites?) where you can find the type of software used by mass mailers, to try and find something that uses the "theory" I posted, in actual software that allows sending a unique, named attachment to each person in the list

Interesting project... good luck!

Never seen any problems with corruption.




You've been lucky. There have been many complaints in here over the years.

I will read the FAQ.




Here's a link to the FAQ: <http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.3bbad474/0>