In the Control Panel, click Manage
Messages.
In the window that appears, click Cancel
to go to Desktop Marketer's Message Manager.
(This window includes options for checking statistics about how many
contacts have downloaded each of your messages; for more information about
using these statistics, read About Statistics.)
The Message Manager window will open:
This window displays all the messages that are currently available
to your contacts. In it, you can create, edit, delete, and preview messages;
you can also click Refresh to
get a current list of the messages that are posted on your server. (For
more about creating and managing your messages, read About
Messages.)
If you have created more than one Desktop Reader (Professional version
only), you can use the drop-down menu at the top of the Message Manager
to view the messages you have created for each separate Reader. (In this
example, the Reader is "Joe's Motorcycling News.")
Note that when you create, edit, or delete a message in the Message
Manager window, the changes you make will be saved on your server. The
next time a contact's Desktop Reader application checks your server for
messages, it will automatically synchronize its list of messages with
the list on your server.
To begin creating a new message from a template,
click Create a Message. The Message
Editor window will open:
In the Subject
field, type a subject line for your message. This will appear in
the subject line of the notification your contacts receive in their inbox.
If you wish to "merge" information into the subject line, insert
your cursor at the point in the text where you want the information to
appear, then use the Insert Merge Fields
to Subject drop-down list to select first name, last name, e-mail
address, or the date or time when the message was downloaded by your contact's
Desktop Reader:
In this example, a contact who registered her Desktop Reader under
the name "Sue" would see the following subject line in her inbox:
Next, write the caption for the pop-up window
that will appear on your contacts' computer desktops when they receive
the message. To add merge fields, use the Insert
Merge Fields to Caption drop-down list.
In this example, a contact who registered her Desktop Reader under
the name "Sue Brown" would see the following pop-up window appear
on her computer desktop:
To import the template you will use to create
your message, click File > Import
Template.
In the dialog box that appears, you can select
one of the Desktop Marketer templates or search your computer's hard drive
to find another file you wish to use as a starting point. Note that you
must select an HTML file (which will have a name ending with the extension
.htm or .html).
(Note that if the HTML document includes links to any external image
files, those images will automatically be "embedded" in the
body of the Desktop Marketer message, so there is no need for you to save
the images to a special location or upload them to a web server.)
Click to select the HTML file you wish to use as a template, then click Open.
After you have imported your template into the
Message Editor, you can add your original content and adjust the formatting
of the message before you send it. Note that you can compose your message
in "raw" HTML code, in the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You
Get) Design view, or in a split screen which shows both views. To switch
between views, click the View menu
at the top of the screen and select Design,
Source, or Split.
In the Code view, you will
need to type or paste in the HTML tags you wish to use. In the Design
view, you can use the following tools to format your message:
Open
a new, blank message in the Message Editor
Open
existing files from your computer hard drive to add to your message
Save
your message to your web server
Delete
selected portion of message and save it to your clipboard
Copy
selected portion of message to your clipboard
Paste
selection from clipboard into message
Print
message
Insert
picture
Create
hyperlink for selected text
Position
selected portion of message as absolute
Position
selected portion of message as static
Change
the font of selected text
Change
the size of selected text -- 1
is smallest, 7 is largest
Format
selected text as an address, heading, bullet list, numbered list, or other
format
Format
selected text bold
Format
selected text italic
Format
selected text underlined
Set
color of selected text
Format
selected text as a numbered list
Format
selected text as a bulleted list
Move
selected text left
Move
selected text right
Left
justify selected text
Center
selected text
Right
justify selected text
To save the message to your web server so that
it will be available for your contacts, click Save
, then review your welcome message settings as shown
below:
When you are ready to save your welcome message to your web server,
click Save. If you are using the
Pro version, you will be prompted to schedule
a notification time and date when your message will be made available
to your contacts, plus an expiration date after which they will no longer
be able to view the message.
After you complete this step, Desktop Marketer will automatically check
for an Internet connection, then save your message on your server, where
it will be made available for your subscribers at any time after the notification
date you specified.