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Support Help for Composing Letters

You can create letters that will look appealing and merge the necessary information. Once done, you can easily make small adjustments in the letter based on the new talk series.

How Does This Work?

A brief explanation of this portion of the program will assist you in understanding why this method of producing letters became necessary.

Many brothers have simply sent out a standard, 'un-personalized' letter to the congregations, simply because they did not understand how "Mail Merge" works, which is a common function of Word processing programs like Word. In visiting with other traveling overseers, it was observed that really very very few understood how to do "Mail Merge." This is unfortunate, because this really simplifies the work we do and gets personalized letters out quickly that are much more professional looking.

In comes Circuit Data On The Go to the rescue!

What we have attempted to do is completely eliminate the Word processor in the sending of the many letters to the congregations, as well as the printer! There is no need to learn complicated Mail Merge to send your letters. Just follow the instructions below to print nicely formatted letters on your custom stationery contained in the program.

Create Your Letter

Choose the format - You will have a selection of three different types of letters. They are similar but vary just slightly in what is included in the letter. You will notice the difference by seeing what is being merged into the letter. You then can supply your own text.

Once you have selected a version, click the button on the left "Use This" and it will highlight in yellow, indicating that this is the version you are going to use.

Compose the Letter - This may be a little awkward at first to do, but you will get the hang of it. Basically, you are adding text to fill between the merge fields. This means that all punctuation and text must fit the context of the fields being merged. It might be helpful to copy and paste from your current letter into the fields. Keep checking your progress by clicking on the "Preview" icon in the upper right of this form. Watch for missing or added spaces that need to be edited in or out. Carriage returns may also need to be included. Generally, a one page letter is all that is needed and there should be plenty of room on the letter to accomplish the entry of the visit information for the week.

Generally speaking, when you create your letter, you probably will not be composing different format of letters for every series. The basic content will be there, but maybe tailoring it to the new series. It is good to remember that the different versions of the letters share fields and you will see this. So if you decide to change letter versions, keep this in mind that you may have to 'shuffle' the text in the fields around to make the letter work in your new version. Again, most people will probably pick a version and stick with it. (If a version could use some improvement in your estimation, don't hesitate to contact me, and we can see about adding a different version.)

With some patience, your letter will soon be created with any errors edited out by you. Then you can sit back and send letters later without having to worry about the content, at least for 6 months!

Entering Checklists - This allows you to enter a pre-made Congregation Meeting Schedule, with all information merged in for the week, as well as your own lists you create to be emailed to the congregation. (See How to Add Checklists to your letter for more information.)

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