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THE OFFICE LETTER
STANDARD EDITION
Tips, Tricks, Tools, and Techniques for Microsoft Office
Volume 4, Number 28 December 27, 2004
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WISHING YOU A HAPPY NEW YEAR!
IN THIS ISSUE
1) Excel: Three of Our Favorite Tips
2) Blink: Follow-Up
3) Review: Mach5 Mailer
This Week's Premium Edition Extra:
Word: Shortcut to Show/Hide Formatting Symbols
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1) EXCEL: THREE OF OUR FAVORITE TIPS
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This week we offer three of our favorite Excel tips from the Office
Letter archives. The tips will help you format percentages,
compute work days, and sort data.
You'll find the tips here:
http://www.officeletter.com/favexceltips.html
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2) BLINK: FOLLOW-UP
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Our review of Kleptomania a couple of weeks ago (see
http://www.officeletter.com/blink/kleptomania.html) brought several
comments from readers asking bout functionality.
One reader noted, "I have been using a FREE program called 'Gadwin
Print Screen' that I downloaded from the Internet that appears to
do everything that 'Kleptomania' does and the price is better."
We, too, like Gadwin Print Screen, but it doesn't do the OCR that
Kleptomania does. Gadwin can capture a portion of the screen and
create a graphic, but it can't extract the text of an error message
window, for example, and paste the TEXT into a Word document.
In January, the company is releasing an update; it will support
capturing long (scrolling) windows. The feature will let you
capture the whole document or database report in a single
operation. The company's CEO says it's the most long-awaited and
asked-for feature by its users. (If you're a developer and want to
feed your program with text data from existing applications, check
into their SDK at http://www.structurise.com/textract/.)
You may wish to hold off until the update is released; the company
says the upgrade won't be free to existing users.
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3) REVIEW: MACH5 MAILER
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In past reviews we've looked at programs that help you keep in
touch with your customers with e-mail outside of Outlook. The
challenge to overcome, however, is that each of these (Add2It and
BigSender) both require a Web component that you must either
install yourself or pay to have installed.
Mach5 Mailer (http://www.mach5.com/products/mailer/) circumvents
that requirement. You install an application on your system, then
use it to design the e-mail messages (in text, HTML, or both).
(See our screen shot in the online edition this week.) Mach5's
vendor includes a free service (called, appropriately enough,
Subscriber) that provides the Web logic so that subscribers can
join (and leave) your mailing list easily -- there's no Web coding
involved, and the service is free for lists of up to 5,000
subscribers. (The company charges a monthly fee for larger
subscriber lists.) Subscriber also supports opt-in to prevent
fraud; subscribers can sign up for your messages or newsletter but
must reply to an e-mail message to confirm their request before
they're added to your subscription list.
You can also mail from your own lists (from text, Access, or Excel
files, for example). There's a third option: using a utility
called PopMonger, your subscribers can send messages to a mailbox
([EMAIL PROTECTED], for example), and PopMonger will parse
messages and add (or remove) subscribers from your list, as well as
process bounces. PopMonger works well, though the documentation
needs a more detailed tutorial for getting things set up; it takes
a bit too much for granted.
Mach5 is particularly strong at handling customization within your
message. Besides supporting templates, the program can support
if/then logic to include or exclude text (or even file attachments)
based on field values. The Preview window is available so you're
sure your logic is correct.
When it comes to sending, Mach5 lives up to its speedy name. The
program creates up to 20 threads, so it sends the next message just
as soon as a message has been sent from one of these threads. We
were skeptical at first, but sure enough, it works. Your overall
speed will vary, based on your system's speed and, in our case, the
speed of our ISP's mail processing. If your ISP sets limits on how
much mail you can send, Mach5 Mailer lets you control the message
send rate. For overnight distribution without intervention, Mailer
includes a scheduler.
If your organization (your soccer league, for example) has fewer
than 200 members, or you just want to give Mach5 a spin, try the
Free version. The Regular version ($99.95) removes that limit.
For advanced scripting or ODBC support, move up to the version we
tested: Gold ($249.99).
-- James E. Powell
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4) PREMIUM EDITION EXTRAS THIS WEEK
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This week Premium Edition subscribers are learning of a quick
keyboard shortcut to show and hide formatting symbols.
Why not subscribe to the Premium Edition today for just $12/year?
HTML format, extra content, access to all back issues, a fast
search engine, a printer-friendly format option, and no
advertising! Visit:
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----------- THE OFFICE LETTER ----- www.officeletter.com ----------
Tips and Tricks for Microsoft Office - Published Weekly
Copyright 2004 Masterware, Inc. All rights reserved
Now In Our Fourth Year - ISSN: 1543-5768
Editor in Chief: James E. Powell
Contributing Editors: Jim Boyce (www.boyce.us)
Dick Archer (www.diseno.com)
