I occasionally sell my used CD's on the Amazon.com website. I like to
send a brief email to each purchaser. The text never varies; all that
changes are the address and subject lines. Precisely how can I store
the standard text of this message on my computer (using Win98, IE6,
and Outlook Express), retrieve it when I need it, type in the address
and subject lines, and send it?

Hello monreale,

Thanks for your question.

There are several ways this can be done, and I tend to vary the method
I am using depending on my current needs. But let me give you one easy
way to make this work for you.

Open Outlook Express and create a new email with everything you would
like for the body of the message and even include the subject if you
like. As a matter of fact, if you plan on saving several different
versions, do fill in a unique subject line for each version. Just
leave the "To:" line blank.

When you are done, go to File / Save as and save the message on your
hard drive where you will be easily able to find it. You might even
create a folder on your hard drive first and if you were to call it
c:\_Email Templates, it would most likely appear at the top of your
folders list in Explorer as he underscore character (_) comes before
the letter "A". Or, you can create this saved file on your desktop and
have it appear as an icon there. Your choice.

If you have filled in the subject line, this will automatically become
the name of the file you are saving. For example, CD Reply 1, CD Reply
2, or anything you desire that works for you.The file will have the
extension .eml when it has been saved.

Now, to reply to one of your customers, just double click the CD Reply
1.eml file you have saved in either Windows Explorer or My Computer
(whichever you prefer), or by double clicking the icon on your desktop
if that is where you have saved the file. A new email with this as the
template will open up. It doesn't even matter if you have Outlook
Express open or not.

Fill in the To: field and change the Subject, if you wish, and click
send. The saved email template will remain in the folder you created,
and the email to your customer will be sent.

As I mentioned, there are other ways to do this including using the
Drafts Folder in Outlook Express and creating Sationary, but this is
by far the easiest way to accomplish your goals.

I hope I have saved you many keystrokes! Do ask if anything above is
unclear.

Regards,

-=clouseau=-

A very simple and elegant solution to my problem. Clousa-ga knows his business.

Hi monreale,

I also have a bunch of standard templates that I use often in my
emails.  I've tried the template method, and it's a little clunky. 
Here's a real easy (though not intuitive) way to do it: Use
signatures.

Outlook Express will allow you to store signatures, which are usually
used at the bottom of your message to include your contact
information.  But who says they can *only* be used as a "signature" at
the end of an email?  Use it to store your *entire* message!

Go to the Tools menu in Outlook Express, then select Options.  Click
on the Signatures tab and follow the instructions from there.

When composing a message, you insert the signature you want by going
to the Insert menu, then select Signature.

Good luck!

Scott
scottso-ga

Scottso,

Good idea, but the saved signature is limited in length to about a
paragraph (Might be 512 characters). Longer email messages saved as
signatures will be truncated.

You could save about a paragraph's worth in each of several signatures
and string them together, but at that point, I do think my method
above would turn out to be a bit easier.

But thanks for adding that suggestion!

-=clouseau=-

Monreale,

You may also want to look into using a clipboard manager utility that
will let you store your message/text.   I don't use Windows, so I
can't recommend certain utilities, but here's a listing of some of
them so that you can get an idea of what they offer:
http://www.downlinx.com/windows/Utilities/ClipboardManagers/

There a number of ways to achieve what you're trying to do - but
everyone will have their own preferred way.   For example, something
you could do with Outlook:  compose the standard response and save it
as a Draft (or send the message to yourself).   When you need to use
the text, simply go to the Drafts folder (or to the folder you saved
the message in), select the message, click forward, plug in the email
address, and strip away the header info for "forwarded" message.  
Alternately, simply select the message, and then use keyboard
shortcuts to highlight all the text and copy the text, click back to a
new message window, and paste the text.
These method sound kinda clunky, but you might find it works for you!

leep-ga