• Creating New Letters or Changing Existing Letters
• What letter tokens can you use to merge data
• How can you insert non-printing comments into the letters
• Letter File Names
• Using Standard Clauses
• Changing the Signing Clause at the Bottom of the Letters
• Can You Print Multiple Letters at the One Time
• Conditional Printing
• Inserting Pictures and/or Logos and/or Signatures
• Letters - More detailed information

Creating New Letters or Changing Existing Letters

The easiest way to create a new letter is to select an existing letter, click on the EDIT LETTER button to bring up the source code of the letter in the text editor and then choose the SAVE AS option from the FILE menu to save this letter under a new name. Once you have done this then you can change the letter any way that you want and then save it again. We suggest leaving the header information including your name and address and the person to whom you are sending the letter's name and address as they are and also leave the signing clause alone. All you need to do is to change the text in the main part of the letter which is the middle portion on the text in the editor.

To change the wording of an existing letter to better suit your own needs just select that letter, click on the EDIT LETTER button, make your changes and save the letter.

What letter tokens can you use to merge data

• Click on the REPORTS menu
• then OTHER MASTER REPORTS
• then MAIL MERGE TOKENS or LETTER PRINTING TOKENS.

This option will print a list of all data fields grouped by the data file that they are located in. To print one of these tokens you need to enter the file name, a full stop and the field name and then surround this with square brackets and so for the Employees SURNAME from the EMPLOYEES file you would enter [EMPLOYEES.SURNAME] to print it. It doesn't matter whether you enter it in capital letters or not.

Most of the letter printing tokens correspond to items in the database but some of them are calculated/generated from other items which DO exist in the database. The list of these appear under CALCULATION in the list of tokens. You can use these tokens as [Calculation.Company Address] or you can drop the calculation bit and just use [Company Address].

Other specialised tokens that you can use include...

How can you insert non-printing comments into the letters

If you want to insert some comment text into your letters to remind you what the letter is for or why you have done it the way that you have then you can do so by putting two exclamation marks (!!) on a line and then your comment. Any text entered on the line AFTER the two exclamation marks will be there for you to see when you edit the letter source but will never print onto the letter itself.

Letter File Names

Using Standard Clauses

• (Merge LETRHEAD.STD) !! Merge in your letterhead
• (Merge SIGNING.STD) !! Merge in your signing clause
• (Merge OURNAME.STD) !! Merge in your own name and address for a letter addressed back to you

Now the purpose of a standard clause it to prevent you from having to type the same thin over and over again into most/all of your letters. Also, if you decide that you want to change your letterhead or signing clause then you can change it in ONE place and it will automatically change the way that EVERY letter is printed.

Changing the Signing Clause at the Bottom of the Letters

The signing clause printed at the bottom of each letter is generated using another letter called SIGNING.STD. This is just another standard letter which you can edit (it's not in the list of letters but you can type it's name into the letter name box and click on the EDIT letter button.

EG: If you wanted to change YOURS SINCERELY to YOURS FAITHFULLY you would edit SIGNING.STD to do this.
However
The name it prints comes from the USER ID table which you change in the EDIT USER ID screen and the SIGNING.STD letter just prints [User ID.Name] on the bottom of each letter. So if you change the names in the EDIT USER ID screen then you will change what prints at the bottom of the letter.
Also
In the letter printing screen you can CHOOSE what name you printing on the bottom of the letter as there is a box on the letter printing screen for you to choose the USER ID that you want to use.
AND
You can change the default USER ID of each computer by (from the main screen)...

• going into the EDIT menu
• then OTHER MASTER FILES
• then CONTROL DETAILS
• then change the default USER ID in this screen
• Click on the SAVE button and exit the screen.

Can You Print Multiple Letters at the One Time

Yes you can do this by selecting to print just ONE letter. What you do is to create all of the individual letters that you want to print as separate letter files so that you can print just one of them if you so desire. Then create a new letter with code like the following....

What this will do is print either 3 or 4 letters automatically for the same client. The letter names that are being merged are just other letters already on the system. Note that the Strata letter only gets printed if the property has had a Strata Corporation Name entered into the client details otherwise it is skipped. Note also that some of the brackets are parentheses ( ) and some are square brackets [ ] and it DOES matter which ones you use.

Conditional Printing

(If [Client Details.Agent Commission] EQ "")
Do something in here
(Endif)

This says that if the agent commission is blank (ie there isn't any) then print whatever is between the (If...) and the (Endif) lines.

Note, that the (If...) and (EndIf) must be at the start of a line for them to work. You can also check if the commission is not blank by using NE "" instead of EQ ""

Inserting Pictures and/or Logos and/or Signatures

[bitmap filename]

then the picture specified by file name will be inserted into the document at that point. So to insert a picture called C:\Windows\Clouds.bmp you would insert the text...

[BitMap C:\Windows\Clouds.Bmp]

Note that capital letters or lower case letters don't matter. The logo file MUST be a Windows Bitmap (not a jpeg or gif file) and you can create your logo using the Windows Paint Program which can be found in START then PROGRAMS then ACCESSORIES then PAINT.

I'd suggest saving the logo file to your C:\RentMstr\Letters or C:\Broker\Letters folder to make it easy to find. Make sure that the name of your bitmap file is no longer than 8 characters long, has only numbers, letters and/or hyphens in it and is finished with a full stop and BMP. Hence valid letter names are LETRHEAD.BMP, SIGNATUR.BMP (but not SIGNATURE.BMP because it's too long), LOGO.BMP, CO-LOGO.BMP, LOGO-23.BMP (but not LOGO 23.BMP because there is a space in the name).

If you want to change your name and address which normally prints at the top of each letter with a new format including the log then you need to edit the LETRHEAD.STD file which is usually the name of the file which is merged into the top of each letter.

To add a scanned signature into the signing clause then edit SIGNING.STD and add in the signature bitmap.

Letters - More detailed information

Each key (letter) is represented by one of more characters and to send a single keyboard character, use the character itself. For example, to represent the letter A, use "A". If you want to send a word just use that word.

The plus sign (+), caret (^), percent sign (%), tilde (~), and parentheses () have special meanings to the letter program. To specify one of these characters, enclose it inside braces. For example, to specify the plus sign, use {+}.

Also you can't send square brackets ([]) since these are used to enclose data that you want to merge into the letter from the database. To send brackets characters, use {[} or {]} and to send brace characters, use {{} or {}}.

To specify characters that aren't displayed when you press a key

(such as Enter or Tab)

and keys that represent actions rather than characters, use the codes shown below:

To specify keys combined with any combination of

Shift, Ctrl, and Alt keys,

precede the regular key code with one or more of the following codes: {Shift}, {Ctrl} or {Alt}.

To simplify your typing you can also use

the + key instead of {Shift},

the ~ key instead of {Ctrl} or

the % character instead of {Alt}.

To specify that Shift, Ctrl, and/or Alt

should be held down while several other keys are pressed, enclose the keys' code in parentheses.

For example, to have the Shift key held down while E and C are pressed,

use "{Shift}(EC)" or "+EC".

To have Shift held down while E is pressed,

followed by C being pressed without Shift,

use "{Shift}EC or "+EC".

To specify repeating keys, use the form {key number}; you must put a space between the key and number.

For example, {LEFT 42} means use the Left Arrow key 42 times and

{h 10} means print h 10 times.