Comments on: Why e-mail merge makes me want to throw a tantrum

By: Cecily Walker

Cecily Walker — Fri, 21 May 2010 07:26:41 +0000

It wasn't possible in 2008, which is when I wrote this post.

By: Dee

Dee — Fri, 21 May 2010 07:25:52 +0000

It's actually possible to do a mail merge using Google Docs & Gmail. I need to do almost exactly the same thing you did and followed this tutorial:

http://www.google.com/google-d-s/scripts/mail_m…

You only need to modify a few parts. I'm clueless abt javascript and this is my first attempt at mail merge but it only took me a few minutes to get everything up and running. Yey for Google!

You can also try Mozilla Thunderbird with an add-on: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Mail_merge

By: Cecily Walker

Cecily Walker — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 02:23:43 +0000

Thanks!

By: lnmg

lnmg — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 02:09:15 +0000

yes, it's called Group Emailer. There is a template for it built into
Automator and I downloaded a filled-out template from some website.
It was very easy to customize.

By: Cecily Walker

Cecily Walker — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 23:49:50 +0000

Do you remember what the Automator action was called?

By: Cecily Walker

Cecily Walker — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 23:49:10 +0000

That's interesting to know that it would automatically add commas between contacts. Thanks for that tidbit, Anthony.

By: lnmg

lnmg — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 23:38:45 +0000

Follow up: I did find a way to do this in mac using Automator (which comes with the mac in the Applications folder). I did a brief test and it seemed to work well.

Just as I said I prefer to avoid microsoft, I find that 3rd-party programs for mac are often hinky at best. It seems that this can be done with native mac products although they don't make it easy to find or figure out. I hate to say it but I think the ms word/excel/entourage merge is more elegant.

By: lnmg

lnmg — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 02:06:35 +0000

I am with you up to that last step. I also tried and failed with numerous programs in Mac. In the end I punted: wrote the doc in ms word, used the data from a spreadsheet in excel and merged straight into the outbox in entourage (which I otherwise no longer use). It was simple and elegant, just as it should be.

The biggest problem was getting the data from mac mail to the excel sheet; mail did not seem willing to export a file that excel could read. Luckily one of the third-party bulk mail programs that I had tried (which failed) did manage to extract the info from mail and export it to excel.

You are right. This should be easy but in mac world it's not easy without microsoft products. I prefer to avoid them but in this case I was damn glad for them.

By: Anthony

Anthony — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 09:22:07 +0000

I was looking for a similar solution. I copied a column from a google spreadsheet and pasted straight into the BCC fields in Macmail. Macmail helpfully inserted commas between contacts. Hope this helps

By: Morgan

Morgan — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 02:35:40 +0000

I, admittedly am using outlook and bought an add-on program called easy mail merge that means you don't have to edit your email in word (I prefer to do mine just in HTML) and it works quite nicely and will modify the subject line and include an unsubscribe link too if you wish to reuse your session (I need to learn more about this). Anyway, I bought a licence (you can trial it for free) and it saved me hours. I'd love to see mail merge in google and also can't wait for the day I can be free of microsoft. Sadly, the only office product I really do like is Outlook – I haven't found another system that works better for my requirements – though I do use google mail and thunderbird as a matter of principal and only use outlook exchange as required by contracts… still, I like the way it works EXCEPT for the fact that if you dutifully back up your email you cannot access your archives unless you have outlook installed… it's not compatible and that is why I use the other systems even though I do like Outlook… the lack of compatiblity outweighs the good points.