When you are in the internal mail merge editor, the Actions ⇒ Configure Alternate HTML Editor can be used to set things up so that you can use any other editor to do additional editing on the mail-merge letters or receipts. It brings up the following window:
This window allows you to set up the name and full pathname to the executable file of an alternate HTML editor, other than any of the ones that can normally appear in the internal editor if they are detected on your system (Notepad, Word, Dreamweaver, Microsoft Expression Web, or Microsoft Front Page).
Type in the name of the program in the first field, and enter or use the Browse button to find the full path and filename of the executable file to run in the second field.
Click OK to save your changes. (You can also clear both entry fields, and click OK, to remove this configuration of an alternate HTML editor.)
As usual, you can click Help to see this help page, or Cancel to close the window without making any changes.
After configuring an editor in this page, a new option appears in the Actions menu of the internal editor, and a new toolbar button, both with the text "Edit in" plus the name you specified in the first field in this window.
Free WYSIWYG Editor you can Install
One fairly powerful WYSIWYG editor with a free version is BlueGriffon, http://bluegriffon.org. However, if you use the free version it doesn't come with a manual. That can be purchased separated (as a PDF file), which as of mid-2019 costs €7.50. After you install the program from that website, the path to the program for use in the window above will be "C:\Program Files\BlueGriffon\bluegriffon.exe", or "C:\Program Files (x86)\BlueGriffon\bluegriffon.exe" on a 64-bit computer, without the quotes.
There's one weird thing in BlueGriffon, which is that by default when it opens a file from the options in our internal editor, it also opens any files that were open the last time you used it, in separate tabs, and the last previous file is in the currently displayed tab, rather than the one you were trying to edit! The file you wanted to open is in the first tab, so you may have to switch to that. To change this behaviour, go to BlueGriffon's Tools ⇒ Preferences menu option, switch to the File area, and check, then uncheck, the checkbox for "Restore last session's tabs". Then click Close in that window. (Yes, that doesn't sound like it makes sense, but it seems to work!)
This topic was last edited on Mar 23, 2023