Newsletter template created in Word - Distorted when Emailed

[samurrai]

A coworker of mine on the marketing side designed a (very nice looking) e-mail template in Word 2007. She used mail merge to e-mail the newsletter out to a list of individuals on an Excel spreadsheet. The recipients are reporting numerous varying distortions in the newsletter msgs they received. (i.e. pictures and text in the wrong place or on top of one-another.)

I know that a more stable way of creating a template is to use tables and avoid text boxes. However, my coworker has a difficult time with tables. Is there any way to use text and picture boxes while ensuring exact positioning so that distortion does not occur?

Thank you for any assistance.

 

[xlhelp]

I take it the pictures are anchored right.

Try saving it as Word 2003 file and see if problem still exists.

I don't particularly care about apathy

 

[fumei]

Word is NOT a layout application. Never has been, and most likely (and I hope) never will be. It is a word processor, with the emphasis on word. Not images and text.

Further, Word displays content as defined by the local printer driver. So that what looks "perfect" on one machine will not look the same on another machine...if that other machine is using a different printer driver.

So...

"Is there any way to use text and picture boxes while ensuring exact positioning so that distortion does not occur? "

Yes, on your machine (to certain extent); no if you are talking about a guarantee that it will look precisely the same on ANY other machine you send it to.

"Exact positioning" can be sort of, kind of, faked in Word, but exact positioning is a function of a layour application, and Word is not a layout application.

That being said, I agree with xlhelp, try saving it as 2003. You may get better results.

Gerry

 

[samurrai]

Is there a better application to use... the original newsletter was created in publisher, but I'm not aware of how to mail merge using a publisher doc and an excel report. Another thought was to save the file as a pdf, thus preserving the layout, but this would be an attachment as opposed to showing up in the body of a msg.

 

[fumei]

If you want consistent format, use a PDF attachment. Using Word to attempt consistent format in a message body is problematic.

Gerry