Quick Tour

1. Introduction
2. Publishing
3. Templates
4. Tour Conclusion

Introduction

This tour guides you through some simple steps, demonstrating how each

element of Newsletter Ease relates to the other areas. By the end of the tour,

you'll be ready to move ahead with exactly what you want to do with Newsletter

Ease.

In a nutshell, Newsletter Ease helps you to:

1) Set the standard look for each email communication (issue) you send to your

audience. This standard look is called a template.

2) Create a new issue. Enter the content/articles for the issue through the rich

text editor that Newsletter Ease provides. All content is later inserted into the

template to compile the issue.

3) Preview/proof the compiled issue.

4) Select your specific audience and send the issue through a personal email

account.

Note: If you want to send attachments or a custom HTML/Text message each

time and not use the same look, you can do this with Newsletter Ease, but the

default is to use the process described above.)

Let's take a quick walk through this process with Newsletter Ease. The software

comes with a default template and a 1-person mailing list for this practice run.

You can certainly change the template to match your c0mpany brand. Enter or

import your mailing list when you're ready.

Step 1 - Create a Template

Since we have a practice template already made, Step 1 is complete for this

example.

Step 2: Content Entry

Click on Issue 1, in the Publications section of the Navigation Tree.

The Issue Details tab conveys the Issue Name, Subtitle, Email Subject Line, and

Target Publication Date.

In the right-hand window, click on the Content tab.

Here, you can enter your content/articles for the issue.

Step 3 - Preview your newsletter.

The Preview tab displays the compiled issue that would be sent to your

audience. You can see elements of the Issue Details brought into the preview.

Step 4 - Publish your newsletter

Notice your email address at the bottom of the window beside Recipients. Before

you publish your Issue, it's a good idea to send a copy to yourself first. Send a test

issue by clicking Send Now, if you're connected to the Internet.

Using the Trial Mode settings, Newsletter Ease will send this Issue to you at the

email address that you supplied when you first opened Newsletter Ease.

These four steps demonstrate publishing with Newsletter Ease.

In-depth Publishing Overview

Consider that you've done nothing more than enter your email address and click

the mouse a few times to send yourself an email with Newsletter Ease.

Let's go back over each step now in more detail, starting with the relationship

between a Publication and a Mailing List.

Click on the My Newsletter Publication in the navigation tree to follow along and

access the settings for this Publication.

Notice the Settings button in the upper right-hand corner of the window. Click

on that button.

Two important ties are made here. The Publication connects to its Mailing

List through this window, and you set the default Template to be used for each

Issue of the Publication.

If you have two completely distinct audiences for the same communication, there

are two ways to achieve this. One, implied by the relationship that you set within

this window, is to create two distinct Publications, using exactly the same

Template and Content.

The second method of sending the same message to two distinct groups is to use

Group Management within a Mailing List. To learn more about how to

manage a Mailing List, click My Mailing List in the navigation tree.

There are 3 ways to manually add members to a Mailing List.

1) Click the Add a Member button.

2) Click the Add Members Quickly in a Grid button.

3) Click the Import Members from a file button.

Each method helps you to add Members to your Mailing List and, if needed,

add them to a Group as well.

Once a Group is entered, you can easily display and manage the Group by using

the View drop-down on the right side of the window.

After you Preview the Issue, it's time to officially publish. Click the tab labeled

Publish.

From the Publish tab, you can publish the final draft of your Issue to your

audience. Newsletter Ease will keep track of Members who receive your Issue.

If for any reason, you need to resend to Members who previously received an

Issue, check the box labeled Resend, if sent previously.

Newsletter Templates

It's important to know that Newsletter Ease does not require you to know

anything about creating Web pages to create Templates. In fact, many aspects

of Newsletter Ease try to help you avoid the more complicated processes of Web

publishing.

Templates provide the look for an Issue. Each Issue has its own Content,

which is inserted into your Template when previewing and publishing.

Newsletter Ease makes use of special text tags that we call Newsletter Ease tags.

These tags are typically characterized by:

[nle_...]

Any Template used in Newsletter Ease needs to at least have one Newsletter

Ease tag in it: [nle_contentarea]

Newsletter Ease inserts your Content into this tag.

There are two different file types that you might use with a given Template:

HTML files and text files.

Newsletter Ease publishes your issue as a multipart email, which means it is one

part text and one part HTML (the script language of Web pages). Most often, the

text part is hidden from view and only the HTML part is displayed. Subscribers

who receive your Issue in an email program only capable of displaying text

messages will see the text part of your message first and not the HTML part. This

makes it easy for anyone to read your message.

Let's go now to the Templates section and look at My Template.

There are three tabs at the top of the window: one is for the HTML template and

one is for the Text template. A third tab, Merge Data Defaults, is used in

creating personalized mailings to your newsletter recipients.

On the HTML tab, you can see the properties used in the HTML Template.

These properties are accessed through the lower tabs in the window. This palette

of tools is helpful if you don't know how to write HTML script.

You can create a new template based upon the look of your Web site through the

New Template Wizard. You can also customize your own template or hire the

Newsletter Ease Web design staff to develop a custom template for you.

A Template generated with the Look Wizard can be used for an Issue of a

Publication, a Previous Issues page (aka Archive), a Greeting Card, or a

Calendar within Newsletter Ease. You can browse how these will appear by

choosing from the View as drop-down menu.

Check or uncheck the Show Sample Data box to see how Newsletter Ease

works with Newsletter Ease tags to display each issue's content.

Content Areas are the most complex and powerful feature of Templates.

Through Content Areas, you can create sidebars, banner ads, and multi-tiered

content, such as a separation between local and national articles of interest. You

can learn more about Content Areas and creating your own Templates with

common tools by clicking here.

If you want complete control over the look of your text Template as well, you

can create a text file for use with this Template by switching to the Text tab.

To send out an Issue with a different Template, click on Issue 1 in the lefthand

navigation tree.

Click on the Content tab in the right-hand pane. Then select a new template

from the Template drop-down menu.

Quick Tour Conclusion

As you can see, Newsletter Ease offers you a robust suite of features for

publishing to through email and the Web. We've only scratched the surface

during this tour. Explore the software for a while and continue through this guide

to read more about the many Newsletter Ease features.