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1. From the Accelerator menu within your Word processor, choose |Create/Edit|Letter Format|.

2. Accelerator will open and display the |Create or Edit a Letter Format| dialog box, listing all of the existing letter formats.

3. Highlight the existing letter format that is most like the format you want to create.  Since “Full Block” is the most commonly used letter format, we will use this in our example. Highlight the "Full Block" format and select the |Create New| button (shown above), the |Document Format Description| dialogue box is displayed (shown below). Here you can enter any description for your letter. For example, call it "My Letter". Type "My Letter" in the |Document Format Description| dialogue box.  In Addition, Accelerator now provides the option to make any custom document created within Accelerator available to other Accelerator users.   To make this Form Letter available to other Accelerator users, check the |Public Format| option as shown below.  If you wish, you may keep the document private by selecting the |Personal Format| option (shown below).

4. Select |Continue| and Accelerator will switch back to your word processor and open a pre formatted Full Block template.  The following message is displayed  "Please save and close the format file when you are done editing". This message is just to remind you that you must save and close the document before you can use it.

Do not change the name or location of the document when saving, as it must use the name generated by Accelerator.   
 

Accelerator Macro Suite templates are backward compatible with earlier versions of Word and WordPerfect.  When saving your Custom Form Letter, you may be prompted to save your document in an updated Word or WordPerfect format.  Select |YES| to save the form letter in the latest Word or WordPerfect format if you do not have workstations using older versions of Word or WordPerfect.


 

5. Choose the |OK| button to remove the Save/Close message from the screen (shown above) . The new pre formatted letter format is displayed on the screen and is ready to edit. Treat this document like a regular word processing document; the only difference is that the document uses merge codes and substitution fields that the Accelerator application recognizes.  Begin typing your form letter in place of (OA_START_OA), positioned at the body of the letter. (OA_START_OA) indicates where the text insertion point is positioned for a Form Letter. Ignore the substitution fields such as (OA_RET_ADDR_OA) as they represent what and where information will be inserted after your document is finally created. For example (OA_RET_ADDR_OA) literally stands for the return address and where your return address will be placed should you decide to include it.

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6. From your word processor menu bar, choose |File| then choose |Close|. This saves the form letter in Accelerator to be used as often as you like. You can later use create/edit a form letter again to make any additional changes to this existing letter format.

7. After you have created a form letter, you will want to use it with the |Multiple Letters| features. See the next section on how to use the letter you just created.

1. From the Accelerator menu within your word processor, select the |Multiple Letters| option, the Accelerator application will open. 

2. From the Accelerator application, search for a group of contacts.  To select multiple contacts, click the box to the left of the contacts you wish to include in your merge document.  Once you have made your selections, click the |Keep Checked Contacts| button (Shown Below).  You may also access the |Keep Checked Contacts| function from the Accelerator |Results| menu. 

3. Now Click the |Continue Letters| button (shown below).

4. Select |My Letters| from the drop down list in Step 1 of the Multiple Letters Dialogue Box (Shown Below).  Make any other selections from sections 2-8 to appropriately format your document.  Click the |Continue|

5. To print your form letters, select the |Print to Default Printer| option from the Print Options dialogue box and click the |Continue| button.  You may also select to display the form letters in your word processor or send each letter out as an email.  To merge a range of form letters, enter a range of contacts to merge and select the |Range of Contacts below| option.