Chapter 4. Tutorial #2 - Form Letter

Overview

This example illustrates how to create a standard "letterhead" that can be peronalized for each person in your fax list.  This example will integrate most of the elements you have seen so far and follow through all of the steps required to send the fax.

Part 1:  Creating the Form Letter Template
Insert Company Logo
Insert Label for Address
Insert a Divider Line
Insert Label for Contact Information (Tel, Fax, etc…)
Insert a Template for the Recipient's Address
Insert a Template for the Body of the Letter
Insert a Label for Sign-Off
Insert a Graphic for Signature
Adjust the fonts, alignment and formatting as desired.
Save the file (e.g. letter.cpt)

Part 2:  Creating & Sending the Job
Verify your faxlist is correctly formatted
Use a Test Faxlist to preview the results of your merge
Start the Wizard and provide a new job name
For the Documents screen, select your form letter template (e.g. letter.cpt)
For the Recipients screen, select the appropriate faxlist.
Set any desired Job Options and Press the Send Button.

 

Part 1: Creating the Form Letter Template

Start the Cover Page Editor


1) Insert Company Logo

  • Click the image button
  • Use the mouse to draw a rectangle on the template
  • Double-click the filename property in the Properties Tab
  • Select the graphic file (e.g. mylogo.bmp)
  • After the graphic appears, you can resize it or drag it somewhere else (for example, into the top left corner of the page)

 

 

 

 


2) Insert Label for address

  • Click the Label button
  • Use the mouse to draw a rectangle on the template where you want the label to appear
  • Double-click the Caption property to change the text
  • Double-click any other properties you want to change
  • For this example, we've typed the company address into the box (using Ctrl+Enter to go to the next line)


3) Insert a divider line

  • From the Side Toolbar, insert a frame and drag it to the desired length
  • From the Properties Tab, set the height to 1


 

 

4) Insert Label for contact information (tel, fax, ...)

  • Click the Label button
  • Use the mouse to draw a rectangle on the template where you want the label to appear
  • Double-click the Caption property to change the text
  • Use Ctrl+Enter to make a new line


5) Insert a Template for the Recipient's Address

 

  • Click the Template button on the Side Toolbar.
  • Click the {Name} field on the right hand side to highlight it, then click the Insert Field button.  The {Name} field will then appear in the left hand window.
  • Press the CTRL key together with the Enter key to force a line break.
  • Continue in this fashion, inserting the {Company} field and the {User Defined} fields.
  • After pressing OK, you should see the fields for the recipient's address in the main workspace:


6) Insert a Template for the body of the letter

Click the template button again.

Type in the body of your letter and insert data fields where appropriate (in the middle of the text paragraph for example).

After that, you should see the text paragraph in the main workspace:

 

 

 

7) Insert a text label to finish off the document

 

8) Signature

In the space between the sign-off and the name, insert your signature as a graphic.


9) Adjust the fonts, alignment and formatting as desired. By double clicking on Font Name you will start a window where you can choose any font installed in your system.

10)  When finished editing, save the file.

11)  Make sure your fax list has all of the information in the correct order. 

For the example, we've created a "phonebook.fax" (comma delimited) file that has the information we want to merge into the template:

732-8043,Doug Batchelor,Rainbow,Mr.,,12345-67890,936 West 22nd Ave., Vancouver, BC, V5Z 2A1, Canada,Doug,$1000
555-5555,Test number
555-1234,Office number


12) Test Fax List

You can use the Test Fax List feature to preview the results of the merge.

Preview of the merged data:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



13) Start the Send Wizard and select your Cover Page Template

 (e.g. rainlttr.cpt) file as the document you want to fax.


 


14) Select a faxlist


Next, on the Select Recipients screen, select the faxlist for your job (e.g. phonebook.fax).

15)  Continue with the rest of the job setup steps and then press the Send button. 
World Fax will merge the information into the template at the Server.

Note: How you can force a new line in text fields

If you want to output your data into the coverpage in table format or if you have long lines in your fax list  fields which you want to be wrapped in the cover page, you need to put in the field the charcters  \x0D\X0A  to force a carriage return.  Here is an example:

Data in the fax list user defined field:

This is a very very long long line.\x0D\x0AThis is a very very long long line.

Output on the cover page:

This is a very very long long line.

This is a very very long long line.