20030701-014

 

 

 

Submitting Mailing List, Variable Data, and Publications for Mailing

 

            This document is intended to aid MailMax Direct customers in preparing their mailing lists, variable data and publications to be sent to MailMax. Some of the terminology and ideas referenced may seem technical at first. We recommend you pass this along to the person responsible for exporting your data or creating your publications, or use it yourself as a learning tool.

 

Acceptable Mailing List and Variable Data File Types

·         Microsoft Excel Files *.xls

·         Comma Delimited ASCII Text Files *.txt, *.csv (Comma Separated Values)

·         Microsoft Access Database Files *.mdb

·         dBase V Flat Table Files *.dbf

 

            For the most expedient processing, export your mailing lists to Microsoft Excel (*.xls, up to 65,000 records) file format or Comma Delimited ASCII Text (*.txt, *.csv, unlimited records) file format.

            For most individuals using spreadsheet software, such as Microsoft Excel, you can use the Excel format simply by selecting File/Save As, then selecting Microsoft Excel as the format. Excel has some disadvantages though, such as each file is limited to 65,000 total records/lines. Excel also forces data-types on your columns/cells which can lead to adverse effects on your data. Excel may use a General, Text, Number, Special, or Other data-type when formatting your data. If you were to include a social security number for example, and Excel chose Number as the data-type, you would lose your hyphens as well as your leading zeros, so a social security number of 001-01-0001 may export as 111 or 1010001 which it is then impossible to reconstruct the social security number. This also commonly happens on ZIP codes. For example, a zip code of 00538 may end up as 538, which is not a valid ZIP code. Although you can create custom Special data-types for handling your data in Excel, you may find this is a complex and time consuming process. Normally, for just mailing lists under 65,000 records, Excel should work fine for you. If you plan on including variable data such as Member Numbers, Social Security Numbers, Financial Figures, or other data, consider using Comma Delimited ASCII Text Files.

            If you are exceeding 65,000 records in your list, or you would prefer to use a more open file type that will not modify your data, consider using Comma Delimited ASCII Text files, commonly referred to as Comma Separated Values (CSV) files or just Text (TXT) files. These files are readable/editable on any computer, and in any software. Each column/cell/field of your record is separated by a comma. Text-Qualifiers can be used to encapsulate each field in a record, so that special characters such as the comma can be included. An example of how a properly formatted Comma Delimited file would look:

 

NamePrefix,NameFirst,NameMiddle,NameLast,NameSuffix,Address1,Address2,City,State,Zip4

“Mr.”,“John”,”William”,”Doe”,”III”,”1234 SW Peach St”,”Apt 4a”,”Atlanta”,”GA”,”30303-4521”

“Dr.”,“Jane”,”Mary”,”Doe”,”MD, MBA”,”987 Barron Rd”,”Rm 222”,”Austin”,”TX”,”78757-9876”

       …

 

            Note the Text Qualifier double quotes (“) around each of the ten fields throughout each record. These Text Qualifier allow us to distinguish special characters within a field. Note the comma in the NameSuffix of record two. Dr. Jane Doe is an MD and MBA. It is recorded in this case as “MD, MBA” however anything could have been in that field. The only character you should not have in any field is a double-quote, obviously because it would throw-off our ability to interpret the file. In cases where you save a Comma Separated Values file from Excel, you will notice some columns have Text Qualifiers, and some do not. This is perfectly fine, as Excel has decided automatically which columns need them and which do not. If you are unsure when you are exporting your file from another program, include them anyway. You may include up to three (3) address lines in your record. In a case where you must specify an individuals title, or company, and you think you will exceed three address lines, you should add the title, company, or extra data together to fit into one field. Although not demonstrated here, if you need to include a country, make sure you set-up a separate field for the Country Name. We cannot identify country names when they are mixed in with other data (see Lists That Include Foreign Addresses below). Also note the ellipse (…) represents this file could theoretically have many more records, one per line, although only two records are shown. You will also note the first line/row is not a record, it is a Header Row. The Header Row titles each column of the data, setting a standard placement for each field of data. Each field should be named an alphanumeric title with no spaces or punctuation in the title. This title is referred to as the Column Name. You may include additional Columns in your data. For example, you may want to include a special CompanyName column to allow for the company name to appear in the address. You may wish to include extra columns for data not related to the address, but necessary for variable data printing such as a CustomerNumber, DocumentNumber, ReferenceNumber, BirthDate, SubscriptionEndDate, etc, which are all perfectly acceptable as long as they have a column name and use the Text Qualifiers if necessary. Please do not include extraneous fields that are not used as part of the address and not used as part of your variable data.

 

            Lists That Include Foreign Addresses: For mailing lists that will include some or all foreign addresses, the format is much the same as outlined above, however you will need to include a Country field to designate the country, as well as fields for any other special designations such as Province. An example of how a properly formatted file that would include foreign addresses would look:

 

NamePrefix,NameFirst,NameMiddle,NameLast,NameSuffix,Address1,Address2,Address3,City,State,Province,Zip,Country

“Mr.”,“John”,”William”,”Doe”,”III”,”1234 SW Peach St”,”Apt 4a”,””,”Atlanta”,”GA”,””,”30303-4521”,””

“Dr.”,“Jane”,”Mary”,”Doe”,”MD, MBA”,” 987 Barron Rd”,”Rm 222”,””,”Austin”,”TX”,””,” 78757-9876”,””

“Dr.”,”Roberto”,”de Aquino”,”II, MD”,”4 Livro”,”Rm 5”,””,”Belo Horizonte”,” Minsa Gerias”,””,””,”Brazil”

“”,”John”,””,”Jones”,”Division Manager, ABC Div”,”12 Berryway”,””,””,”Daventry”,””,”Northants”,”NN11 4HE”,”UK”

…

 

            The most important field regarding your foreign addresses is the Country field. Without it, your mail piece will not be routed outside of the United States! Please be sure to include as much of the foreign address as possible, and make sure the information is separated properly. There are many, many mail systems in the world, and unfortunately only a handful have a zoned delivery system such as our USPS. Therefore addresses vary drastically across the world, and it is impossible for an individual unfamiliar with the locale of a particular address to be able to tell whether it is correct or not. The better your address records are, the more likely they will be delivered!

 

            The following fields are recommended for US mailings: NamePrefix, NameFirst, NameMiddle, NameLast, NameSuffix, Company, Address1, Address2, Address3, City, State, Zip. The following fields are recommended for Foreign mailings or mixed Domestic and Foreign mailings: NamePrefix, NameFirst, NameMiddle, NameLast, NameSuffix, Company, Address1, Address2, Address3, City, State, Province, Zip, Country.

 

 

A Note On Using Other File Types

Aside from Microsoft Excel and Comma Delimited files, MailMax can accept some other file types and attempt to convert them for our use, such as Microsoft Access (*.mdb) files, and dBase (*.dbf) files. However, most other file types than Comma Delimited store the data in a binary format (non-text) with extra formatting and relationship data that is unnecessary for our purposes. This extra data adds to the size of the file, and the fact that it is in a proprietary format makes it difficult to extract the necessary data from the format, if at all. In fact in some cases, file formats such as Apple’s Filemaker are so proprietary we are unable to export data from the file. Most proprietary spreadsheet and database applications offer different Save formats when you are saving the file, or will allow you to export to another format. Comma Delimited is the lingua franca of most modern software and it is highly likely you will find an option to save or export to Comma Delimited or Comma Separated Values format. Surcharges may apply to convert non-accepted formats. Please consult a MailMax Direct Customer Service Representative for more information.

 

            A common misconception is that Tab Delimited Files (*.txt, *.tsv, sometimes called Tab Separated Values) and Fixed Width Text Files (*.txt, sometimes called Fixed Length Files) are just as good as Comma Delimited Text Files (as described above). These other two types of data files are vastly different from Comma Delimited Text Files, and in fact different from themselves. Tab Delimited means instead of a comma used to separate fields, a tab character is used. We have found that different software on different computers interpret the tab character differently, leading to disastrous effects on your data. Fixed Width means each column in a text file exists within a certain fixed-position, and may not deviate. We have found in different software that although the software claims it can export a fixed width file, it will allow the length of each field in each record to fluctuate, based on the length of a field. If a field exceeds the fixed width of the field, it will randomly increase the length of the field in the Fixed Width file, thus undermining the whole point of Fixed Width files. Things get especially dangerous once you have converted your data to either of these formats. If an error occurred either with the tabs or the fixed positions, your data is forever corrupted and will require an individual to manually go through each record and correct the data. Even if you attempt to correct the mistake by importing the file into a spreadsheet such as Microsoft Excel, data will still be corrupted, incorrectly spread across multiple fields. It is far better to avoid these formats entirely when sending data to MailMax. MailMax Direct charges a surcharge to manually clean corrupted mailing lists, please consult your Customer Service Representative for more information.

 

            Another common misconception is that a Label Images Disk File (*.txt) or any file from text files to Microsoft Word that has addresses listed as they should appear on the mail piece in a vertical fashion is just as good as Comma Delimited files. An example of a Label Images Disk File:

 

       Mr. John William Doe, III

1234 SW Peach St

Atlanta, GA 30303-4521

      

 

 

Dr. Jane Mary Doe, MD, MBA

987 Barron Rd

Rm 222

Austin, TX 78757-9876

 

Bill Jones

Inventory Manager

Research Corp Limited

1298 Hughes Pkwy S

PO Box 4578

Salem, OR 54321

       The Honorable Linda Jones

       12 Justice Blvd, #141

       New Orleans, LA 23672

 

       …

 

            Notice how the spacing between each record varies, it may be three lines, it may be one line. Also notice how the length of each record varies, it may be three lines, it may be 6 lines. Finally, notice how the last two records, Bill Jones and The Honorable Linda Jones run together (this is a common problem when saving or copying out an address list file from a Microsoft Word document to a text file). The file can become virtually impossible to use, unless hours of human interaction clean the file. Please avoid this format.

 

 

Acceptable Mailing Piece / Letter / Layout / Publication File Types

·         Microsoft Word Files *.doc

·         Microsoft Publisher *.pub

·         ASCII Text Files *.txt

·         Rich Text Format Files *.rtf

·         Portable Document Format (Adobe Acrobat) *.pdf

           

            We can accept your content for variable data printing in Microsoft Word (*.doc) file format or ASCII Text (*.txt) file format.

           

            We can read and convert Rich Text File (*.rtf) file format, Microsoft Publisher (*.pub) file format, Microsoft PowerPoint (*.ppt) file format, Harvard Graphics 3 (*.sh3, *.ch3) file format, Freelance 1 - 2.1 (*.pre) file format, WordPerfect 5 or 6 (*.doc, *.wpd) file format, Adobe Acrobat (*.pdf) file format, HP PCL5 (*.pcl, .prn) file format, PostScript (*.ps) file format, many image file formats from TIF to PSD and more. However, it should be noted that other formats limit our ability to include variable data for merging data into the file. At best, we will copy out the content from the originating file and reassemble in one of our mail merge applications. Some formatting loss may be present.

 

            In the case of Static Mailing Pieces, or mailing pieces that will not have data merged into the piece for printing, we can accept virtually any file format, and if not, you can usually export it to a PDF file or print it to a PCL file before sending it to us. In some cases, in situations where you can only provide a static file such as a PDF or PCL file, but would like to include variable data as an overlay on-top of the printed image, say your return address, company name, or customer address, overlay printing is possible for an additional fee. Contact a MailMax Direct Customer Service Representative for more information.

 

            In the case of Variable Data Mailing Pieces, you may indicate at what point(s) in the document you would like to insert variable data fields. You can easily do this with the Mail Merge features of Microsoft Word and Publisher, or if using another format such as a Text File, or RTF file, use an indicator or anchor such as <FirstName>, <LastName>, <MemberNo>, etc, and we will setup the merge field anchors for you.

 

 

Compressing Your Files Before Sending

 

            Compressing a file means to encode the file in another more efficient storage format which takes up much less space, making the file size smaller. The most common compression format is Zip (no relation to USPS ZIP Codes!) introduced by Phil Katz in the 1980’s, and it is still in use today. A Zip File can contain one or more files, and will usually be smaller than the original file(s). Making the file smaller means it will fit onto a disk better, and it will travel faster over email, the web, or FTP. Common programs for zipping files are NicoMak’s WinZip http://www.winzip.com, and PKWARE’s PKZip http://www.pkzip.com. Both are available as shareware, meaning you may download and use the software immediately, however you are expected to register and pay for the software if you continue to use it past a specified time period. Information on both company’s licensing is available on their web sites. Zip software is an invaluable tool, and useful for far more than just your mailing lists. It’s a good investment.

 

            An alternative to these programs is 7-Zip, a GNU licensed free program. It works much the same way WinZip does, in a more barebones way. It does a great job at handling zip files, and integrates with Windows so that when you double click a zip file, it will show you the contents in explorer style, allowing you to drag and drop to extract files.

 

Using WinZip to Zip your files: First, install WinZip with the default options. Once installed, you can right-click on any file and select Add To Zip or WinZip->Add To Zip, depending on your version. You then name the output Zip file, and remember the place you put it, your best bet is to select your Desktop as the destination or target directory. Once finished, a new *.zip file will appear on your computer. You can then drag it to a new email, upload it to our site, ftp it to our site, or copy it to a disk of some variety.

 

Using 7-Zip to Zip your files: First, install 7-Zip from http://www.7-zip.org using the default options. Once installed, you can right-click on any file and select 7-Zip->Add to archive. Enter a name for the output file in the Archive box, click the … to select a destination folder for the output file (so you can find it later, Desktop is recommended), make sure Zip format is selected, set the compression method to Maximum and click Ok. You can then drag it to a new email, upload it to our site, ftp it to our site, or copy it to a disk of some variety.

 

 

Sending Your Files To Us

• Email as attachments to data@mailmaxdirect.com
• Upload through our website at http://www.mailmaxdirect.com

• Upload using an FTP client to www.mailmaxdirect.com

• 1.44mb 3.5” Floppy Disk
• CD-ROM: CDR, CDRW, etc.
• 100mb ZipDisk  

 

            Remember to compress your file(s) first for efficiency! For files under five (5) megabytes, emailing the file(s) as an attachment should suffice. To find out how big a file is, find the file on your computer, but do not open it. Instead, right-click on the file and click Properties and read the Size. For files over five megabytes, you may visit our web site at www.mailmaxdirect.com, and go to the Customer Area to upload your file via the web. You may also ftp your file to www.mailmaxdirect.com from an FTP client. Use username Anonymous and send your email address as your password. When you log into our FTP server, you will be able to upload files, but you will not be able to download files or list files for security reasons.

           

            You may also save your files to a CD-ROM, 100mb ZipDisk, or 1.44mb Floppy Disk and arrange to mail them to our offices. Please include your company name, job name, and contact information.

 

 

 

 

MailMax Direct

 

700 W Loop 340

Waco, TX 76712

 

254.751.1012

Fax 254.751.0056

Toll Free 866-751-1012

 

data@mailmaxdirect.com

www.mailmaxdirect.com