Best, easiest, idiot-proof way to produce an electronic newsletter...?

[WilfSell]

I have MS Office suite and various other software.

I need to do it QUICK. Needs to be a template I can re-use.

Any suggestions for where to start (template on MS Word? Publisher?)

Thanks.

Download a template from microsoft office online. Tis free

What sort of size - ie. how many pages? Will you want to add pictures etc.

In my experience, Publisher is the most flexible for this and relatively easy to do. I think there are Wizards to do it as well. I'll go and have a look at my Publisher.

Just looked - Publisher has Wizards for newsletters. Just pick the one you want and away you go!

www.constantcontact.com - they have templates that are already set up. You just plug in your words and away you go. Also have an ability to create lists of who you want to send them to.

oh and you get reports on the emails you send out - so you can see how many people have opened it etc.

HTML Newsletter Templates
More HTML Newsletter Templates

For sending out E-mail newsletters, I use Aweber. If you are only sending a few, you could use your own e-mail software, but your ISP may not permit you to send the same message to a lot of different people. Aweber and ConstantContact are two of many services which help automate sending e-mail newsletters to multiple recipients, while complying with SPAM rules, so your message has a good chance of being delivered.

We sure do. There are many factors to consider.
For example, some people, like me, prefer plain text email, as I can view that on various devices.
Sometimes you may want to show pictures in your newsletter, but they add to download time.
Who is target audience for newsletter? How many subscribers now?

argh, too many geek questions!

audience will be small initially but potentially very large (potential students)

would like to include pictures (photos) but need advice about how to make download times managable. Pages: no more than 4 sides...

Have looked at Publisher templates which look OK despite the shockingly naff designs of most of them. I think I can probably manage with them but will get back to you when I have layout/insertion (oo er) questions...

ConstantContact and Aweber will scale, so can be used with a small list and will cope if you get to 10.000+ subscribers.
It may help you to join some existing newsletter lists, so you get a feel for how things are done.
Have fun designing your first issue.

Pictures: have a website where you can store the pictures. Then in newsletter include a link to the image on the website, then those readers who want to see the picture can do so at their leisure.