Images shrink in HTML mail merge to email

[Nigel Davies]

I have created a newsletter in Word 2003 consisting of a table with text and
several images in separate table cells. When merged to email in HTML format
(Outlook 2003 / Excel 2003 database) and viewed in Outlook, the table
increases in width by about 10% and the images all shrink by about 25%. This
affects the appearance of the newsletter and the line breaks of text.
I have tried locking the table and column widths (Table, Table Properties)
to no avail. I can fix the graphics with a kludge by making them 25% too big
in Word so that they shrink back to the appropriate size in the email but
this is not very elegant - and doesn't fix the table width problem.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[Anne Troy]

Well, I cannot imagine about the images except that perhaps you're viewing
your Word doc at 75% or something? Anyway, the tables... set them to a %
width of the page instead of inches or cm. It works far better. If you like
lots of space on left and right, try 60% width on your table, and be sure to
center your table on the page. This makes a pretty sharp looking newsletter.
************
Hope it helps!
Anne Troy
www.OfficeArticles.com

 

[Nigel Davies]

Thanks for your suggestions, Anne:

Well, I cannot imagine about the images except that perhaps you're viewing
your Word doc at 75% or something?

No - 100%!

Anyway, the tables... set them to a %
width of the page instead of inches or cm. It works far better. If you like
lots of space on left and right, try 60% width on your table, and be sure to
center your table on the page. This makes a pretty sharp looking newsletter.

Nice idea. Tried it but the table still expands by 10% in the email. Also
tried linking the images, rather than embedding, and cropping / scaling them
outside Word, rather than in Word, but the images still shrink!

 

[Anne Troy]

Best I can offer is to have a look. Just send to any name at my web below,
and I'll receive it.
************
Hope it helps!
Anne Troy
www.OfficeArticles.com

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

As you have no control over how the recipients will view the email when they
receive it, you would be a lot better off sending the newsletter as an
attachment to an email merge.

See the article "Mail Merge to E-mail with Attachments" at

http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/MailMerge/MergeWithAttachments.htm

If each newsletter is personalised, so that you need a separate file for
each recipient, see the "Individual Merge Letters" item on fellow MVP Graham
Mayor's website at:

http://www.gmayor.com/individual_merge_letters.htm

You can use the add-in that I have created and which can be downloaded from
that site to create such individual newsletters either as Word documents or
as .pdf documents which would be better.




--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[Nigel Davies]

Thank you Anne and Doug for your replies. Given my requirements (html format
in the body of the email, rather than as an attachment) I have switched to
DreamWeaver to create the newsletter and copied it to an Outlook email form
via Internet Explorer.
Yes, its no longer a mail merge this way and I have to use BCC for the
mailing, but the newsletter at least retains a consistent appearance in the
browser. There also appears to be an additional benefit in that the file size
has reduced from 126Kb to 45Kb.