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Mach5 Mailer FAQ
How Do I Configure Mach5 Mailer to Work With
Microsoft Excel?
Mach5 Mailer can work with data imported from Microsoft Excel files.
Here is a step-by-step tutorial on how to set up Mach5 Mailer:
1. Create your Excel file. Your Excel file must be in a special format.
It's easiest to give an example:
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| A screen shot of Microsoft Excel |
The first row in the spreadsheet must be the column names. After that,
you should list the appropriate data for those column names.
2. Start Mach5 Mailer by clicking Start, Programs,
and then Mach5 Mailer.
3. Select Create a new e-mail merge and click Ok.
4. Select Microsoft Excel and make sure the "direct Excel connection"
checkbox is checked. Click Next.
5. Browse to find your spreadsheet. At the bottom of the Browse
dialog, click the Files of type drop-down box and choose Microsoft
Excel Spreadsheets (*.xls). Select the Excel spreadsheet you want
to use in Mach5 Mailer and click Open. Click Next.
5. If you were using Microsoft Access, Mach5 Mailer would display
a list of all of the "tables" in the database. For Excel files,
there are several common interpretations. First, you can define a table
within Excel, and it will show up as a table in Mailer. Second, and most
straightforward, you can choose a range of cells in Sheet 1 of your spreadsheet
as follows:
Mailer will automatically determine the size of the table to use, but
you can change it easily if you prefer, or choose data from a different
sheet. If you check the "Verify Range" button, Mailer will re-determine
the range of cells to use every time you open the mailing or refresh the
datasource from within Mailer.
Choose your option and click Next.
6. Enter in data about the e-mail merge. You will be able to change this
later on.
7. Compose your e-mail merge.
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If I Use Mach5 Mailer to Send an E-mail Message
to 100 People, Will Person X See All of the 99 Other Recipients?
No. Mach5 Mailer sends a separate, customized, e-mail to each
person on your mailing list. Each person who receives a message sent with
Mach5 Mailer will receive a personal e-mail from you.
Note: no one will think that they have received a personal e-mail from
you if you start the e-mail by saying "Dear Customer"! This
is where Mach5 Mailer's advanced customization features come in.
Try including the person's name in the subject or in the beginning (i.e.
"Dear <<Name>>,").
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How Does The Trial Version of Mach5 Mailer Differ
From The Full Version of Mach5 Mailer?
The trial, or unregistered, version of Mach5 Mailer is exactly
the same as the full, or registered, version of Mach5 Mailer, except
for these two important differences:
1. The trial version of Mach5 Mailer will append a message along
the lines of "This message sent with an unregistered version of Mach5
Mailer...". We recommend that you send test e-mail messages to
yourself and a few co-workers, and then register Mach5 Mailer and
send out your full mailing.
2. The trial version of Mach5 Mailer will stop working after 30
days.
3. The trial version is limited to sending 200 emails at once, to prevent
abuse.
Note we offer a 60-day unconditional money-back guarantee. You are welcome
to register Mailer and try the full version for sending larger mailings.
Please note that Mailer includes identifying information in each email
it sends.
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Does Mach5 MailerWork With AOL? Can I use it with
my ISP?
No, Mach5 Mailerdoes not work with AOL. Mach5 Mailer uses
Internet standard SMTP servers to deliver your e-mail messages. AOL uses
their own proprietary e-mail protocol. We recommend that you obtain a
SMTP account. Your local Internet provider will provide you with both
Internet access and SMTP service for, most likely, around $20 a month.
In addition, services such as Juno also provide you with a SMTP server,
though we have tested Mach5 Mailer with Juno.
You need to determine your ISPs appropriate usage policies before attempting
to send large numbers of emails through your ISP's SMTP server, or even
using the local server and your ISP's internet connection.
We strongly recommend using a service provider or web host that supports
sending appropriate large emailings. Almost ALL web hosting accounts
that you can purchase also provide an SMTP server for you to use. We recommend
and use DewaHost Hosting, which
is one of our business partners. Aside from giving you an SMTP server
to use, even on your own dedicated IP address, they also provide fairly
low cost web hosting with great service and features.
Internal Server: Mach5 Mailer does include an internal SMTP server.
However, other mail exchanges are beginning to discard messages that come
from servers not associated with fixed domain names. For example, even
if you use DSL or a cablemodem, if your IP address is 1.2.3.4, and this
IP address is associated with domain name "dynamicIP-133.myisp.net"
then if this domain name is on a list of "dynamic DNS" addresses,
it will be simply silently thrown away by a large number of mail exchanges.
Likewise, if your IP 1.2.3.4 doesn't have a domain name associated with
it, many mail exchanges will discard it. Note that discarding email without
bouncing it is in direct violation to the email transport protocol definition.
But there's nothing we can do about it!
Don't use an internal SMTP server unless:
- Your company is on a fixed IP address and
- This IP address has a domain name
What Anti-Spam measures does Mailer use?
Mailer sends messages using a hidden X-Mailer tag. This tag identifies
the sending agent as Mach5 Mailer. In this tag we include the last digits
of your registration key, and provide a contact address for reporting
abuse. If abuse is obvious, we may ask that you not use Mailer, and refund
your purchase. Note that the X-Mailer tag does not include any information
that allows the recipient to identify you personally! We will not compromise
your privacy. But if your recipient doesn't know who you are, we'd rather
you not purchase our software anyway. We feel that customized mass mailings
fulfull a very important and useful business function, but we also wish
to encourage ethical use of internet resources, and we feel that sending
spam is unethical.
We limit the trial version to sending out 200 emails at once also, as
an anti-spam measure.
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Mailer can send HTML messages and rich text messages,
Javascript is a bad idea!
Mailer sends messages in two formats simultaneously. While many mail
clients support HTML, some users (like the CEO of Mach5, for instance)
simply hate looking at HTML messages and so have that turned off completely.
If you send just HTML or rich text messages, some users will not see your
email.
For this reason you should send both plaintext and HTML components in
your mailing, or just a plaintext message. We do not recommend sending
just an HTML message.
If you want to compose your HTML in a nice HTML editor and paste the
HTML code into Mailer, we can recomend Netscape Composer for that. If
you do use HTML, please remember that many email clients don't support
the full, recent HTML spec. Some only support HTML 1.0 in fact! So tables
may not even display properly.
And by all means, we do not recommend embedding javascript or CSS or
other such display-oriented elements in HTML messages. Very few mail clients
support Javascript, and to us at Mach5, the idea of an email client doing
dynamic things (and potentially interfering with my reading of email)
is rather abhorrent and you can be sure we at Mach5 will have those options
disabled!
Just remember: You want your mailing to meet its purpose in the context
of email messaging: personal, simple, direct, informative.
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