Author:
Joel
Kristenson
Last
Updated: 2015-03-27
Overview
If you don’t want to code a
complex email template in html/css
for your
newsletter (or hire a web developer) you can create
your newsletter in Microsoft Word
(or a similar program) using some of their powerful
formatting tools, save it as a PDF
document, and then hyperlink too it from your eblast
in
Trail
Blazer.
This article walks through
the steps to take your newsletter that’s first created in
Microsoft
Word,
and save it as a
PDF file. After that it goes through the steps to take a
screenshot of the PDF newsletter
(minimized), save the screen shot as an image file,
and insert the screenshot image into an email template using the new CK
editor. Last but not least it walks through the steps to
create a hyperlink around the minimized screenshot, and link it to the
PDF newsletter hosted on Trail
Blazer’s server.
This is more common for
nonprofit organizations, but really anyone who uses their database to
send out mass email campaigns can utilize this process, another example
is groups who host events
can link to the
pdf poster of the event without relying on a minimized
image.
Creating hyperlinks in your
eblasts can help you to effectively track who has clicked on the
screenshot image to read your newsletter which is a much better
statistic than just tracking who opened the
email.
Tips:
- Click
here to learn about taking a
screenshot on a PC.
-
Click
here for a walk through on taking
a screenshot with a Macintosh
computer.
- Download a useful
screen capture tool for
Windows called “WinSnap”.
Outline
#1
Compose your
Newsletter in Microsoft Word, and Save it as a PDF
Document
#2
Upload your
Screenshot & PDF Document to your System
Gallery
#3
Insert your
Screenshot Image into an Email Template and Create a Hyperlink around
the Screenshot to the PDF Newsletter
#4
Sending out a
Single Test Email to yourself, and Tracking the Analytics
(*Optional Steps)
#5
Related
Resources and 3rd Party
Programs
#1
– Compose your
Newsletter in Microsoft Word, and Save it as a PDF
Document
The first thing you’ll need
to do is create your newsletter using Microsoft
Word,
and save it as a
PDF document. In my example I
used one of Microsoft’s newsletter templates they provide. It
was a fairly large one with a variety of images, and sections.
It’s 4 pages long and the file size is 595
KB or just under .6 MB once
it’s been saved as a PDF.
(Below is a
screenshot of the finished newsletter pdf file prior
to uploading to an email.)
The images below describe
the steps to prepare your document for uploading.
Image 1 of
7 – Choose a Microsoft Word
template or start with a blank Word document
Image 2 of
7 – Compose your newsletter
in Microsoft Word (or a similar
program)
Image 3 of
7 – Save-as a PDF
file
Image 4 of
7 – Open the PDF newsletter
file in a PDF reader e.g. Adobe
Reader
Image 5 of
7 – Minimize the zoom
(ex: 25%) and take a screenshot around the first
page of the PDF newsletter
Image 6 of
7 – Save your screenshot as
an image file to your local computer
Tip:
I
chose .png
since it’s a
fairly lightweight file type, and named it
“2014-october-newsletter-25-percent-zoom.png”
but you could just as well save it as a .jpeg file or
another image file
type.
Image 7 of
7 – Final screenshot image of
my example newsletter
(I included the
background shadow from the WinSnap
screen
capture program, and set the zoom of the to
25%)
These steps basically
summarize the prep work needed prior to uploading,
inserting, and linking to the PDF document from your email
template.
The following instructions
walk through the final steps in the process.
#2
- Upload your
Screenshot & PDF Document to your System
Gallery
*For an in-depth
walk through on re-sizing & uploading images for users still
using the old email
system take a look at this
article. (The process has changed
dramatically for those users who’ve upgrade
from the old email editor to the new CK
editor.)
Tip:
You may choose
to upload the PDF (and/or image) file to your own
domain with your hosting provider i.e. GoDaddy, Rackspace, WordPress,
etc. This would allow you to store as large of a file as you’d
like and still hyperlink to it from with the Trail Blazer email
system without actually uploading it to our
server.
Follow
Application Menu
>System Manager >
System Gallery
Click on the
Documents folder.
Select
[Import File]
Make sure that
*All Files* is selected from the drop-down
menu in the lower-right of the window, select the PDF
newsletter file you created previously, and click
[Open].
After the document is
uploaded you’ll want to right-click it, and select
Properties. (It’s good
practice to do this with all of the images, document files that you
upload so they’re easily accessible when inserting them into an
email.)
Check the box for
“Publish on web” and click
[Save].
Now you will need to go
through basically the same steps to upload your minimized PDF screenshot
image, and publish it to the web.
Select the
Images folder in the System
Gallery and click [Import
File].
Locate, and select the
screenshot image you created previously, and click
[Open].
Right-click on the image
file and select
Properties.
Check the box for
*Publish on web* and click
[Save]. (Optionally you
could write a brief Note
and/or Description.)
After the image is uploaded
you can select it to view details, and click the [Image
Preview] button to make sure it’s the size you
want.
This task is now
complete.
The next section covers the
final steps to insert the screenshot into a template, and hyperlink it
to the pdf newsletter document.
#3
– Insert your Screenshot
Image into an Email Template and Create a Hyperlink around the
Screenshot to the PDF Newsletter
Open your database and
navigate to the Templates list.
(If you don’t see this branch under the Application Menu it’s
because you don’t have security
access and
will need to request your
database administrators for this).
Search for the template you
want to attach your PDF to, and click on the blue link to open it.
(If you’re starting from scratch, you will instead click the
[+ New] button at the
top.
Related
Article: Sample HTML Email Template
with Inline CSS
In this example I chose to
work off of a template in my database called “2014 October
E-Newsletter with Screenshot and Link to PDF
Document”.
Compose the email and place
your cursor in the location where you’d like to insert the screenshot
image. See example
below.
Click the button to insert
an image.
Make sure the radio button
is selected that says ‘Image is located in the system
gallery under name:’ and click the
[Browse] button to locate the screenshot
image you just uploaded into your System
Gallery.
(Alternatively,
if you’ve uploaded the image(s) to your own hosting provider you could
choose the 2nd radio button, and insert the
corresponding web address of that image
file).
Select the
Images folder, click the [Web
Published] button, select your screenshot image file,
and click [OK].
With the latest
enhancements to the email editor you now have the ability to resize your
image, and you can wrap text around it. See image
below for my example image
preferences.
If you happen to get this
error message, select [No] in order to
finish inserting the image. (It may actually pop up more than
once, so continue to hit the *No* button until your image gets
inserted).
Below is an example of how
my image looks with the text wrapped around it to the right.
(If you need to make adjustments to the image you can click on
it, and click the [Image] button to
continue adjusting things like size, margins
etc.)
The next steps go through
the linking of the screenshot image to the PDF newsletter
file.
You’ll first need to
navigate to the System
Gallery.
Select the
Documents folder, right-click on the PDF
newsletter document, and then select Get
URL…
Click the
[Copy URL to Clipboard]
button.
Click
[Close] from the System
Gallery Screen.
To create a hyperlink to
your PDF newsletter, click on the screenshot image, and then click the
[Link] button.
Right-click in the
URL input field and select paste to paste
in the URL of the newsletter file.
At this point you can click
[OK] and you’re finished, I chose to
select the Target tab and choose the option
to open the PDF document in a new
window.
Below is a screenshot of my
final email template, you’ll notice that a thin blue line borders the
image after it’s been hyper-linked. This will disappear once
the email has been sent out.
*Continue reading for more
info on how to test an
email, and track opens,
otherwise it’s off to the races for
you…
#4
– Sending out a
Single Test Email to yourself, and Tracking the Analytics
(*Optional Steps)
You can send out test
emails if you’re working off of an email
campaign, however the steps I demonstrate below show an
alternative way to quickly send a single test email without queuing up a
mass email campaign.
Navigate to the donors
(voters/contacts) list, and search for yourself in
the database.
Open your record by
clicking any of the underlined blue
hyperlinks.
Make sure that you have a
valid email address entered in your record card, and that the
corresponding flags are set to receive emails.
(Example below).
Click the
[Email] button in the bottom
right.
Click [Insert
Template].
Select the template you
created previously with the PDF attachment, and click
[Open].
(Tip: If you
have a lot of templates created, or the luxury of many users creating
templates for your database, you can click the
Details box in the lower-right to sort by
things like ‘create date’).
Click
[Send].
You’ll get a popup message
once it’s complete, click
[OK].
*Allow yourself a little
bit of time for the test email to arrive, depending on the volume of
emails moving through our sending server, and what you’re using to
receive incoming email, it may take only a few seconds or it could take
10-15+ minutes on a really slow day.
Navigate to the
Logs tab
> Email
Log sub-tab > click
[Refresh].
The test email will display
after the email log list has been refreshed.
Depending on what email
client you open the email in it will either automatically download the
images and register as opened, or it’ll
force you to download the images manually (usually as a
security precaution).
Below are a few images that
show the differences between opening the email in Microsoft Outlook vs.
on an iDevice as an iPhone, iPad etc.
Image 1 of 4 - Opening the
test email in Microsoft Outlook (images will not download
automatically)
Image 2 of 4 – Selecting to
download images in the Microsoft Outlook email client (this
will register the email as opened in Trail
Blazer)
Image 3 of 4 - Opening
email on an iDevice (images automatically download which
registers as an open in
Trail
Blazer)
Image 4 of 4 - How the
email log looks after images have been downloaded on recipients
device
You’ll notice that the new
editor inserts a light
blue border around the image, that’s to let you know the
image is hyper-linked. Once you send out a test email you’ll
see that the blue link disappears.
Below are two images that
detail this:
Image 1 of 2 – Finished
email template with screenshot image, and link to PDF
file
Image 2 of 2 – Final view
of the test email viewed in Microsoft Outlook
#5
– Related
Resources and 3rd Party
Tools
Article:
How to Prep and Upload an
Image and Insert it Into an Email
Template
Article:
Images in emails (how do I
get them in there?)
Article:
Sending Out Test
Emails
Article:
Configuring your From and
Reply Email Address Settings
Article:
How Do I Enable A Person
To Receive Email Drafts
Article:
Email Opens and How Trail
Blazer is Managing This Process
Video:
Eblasts 101 how do I send
an eblast
Video:
Eblasts 103 – Part 1 –
Managing Images - Uploading
Video:
Eblasts 103 – Part 2 –
Managing Images - Sizing
3rd
Party Resource (Free
Program): WinSnap
3rd
Party Resource (Free
Program): Microsoft Expressions Web4
– html Editor
3rd
Party Resource (Free
Program): Adobe Acrobat
Reader
3rd
Party Resource (Program): Microsoft
Word
3rd
Party Resource (Video): How to Convert Word
Document into a PDF Document
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