Make Your Holiday Mailing List Create Itself
Every year, especially during the holiday season, people tell us how they wish they’d had their recipient list of addresses organized in a spreadsheet so that we could print them on the envelopes of their holiday photo cards. If you haven’t already done so, this year let your mailing list create itself! All you need is a Google account. If you don’t have one, you can set it up for free here.
We’re going to start with creating a spreadsheet. From the upper left corner of the Google Docs interface, click “Create New”, and select “Spreadsheet” from the menu. Be careful, at this point your new spreadsheet is not saved. You can click the save button in the upper right corner and give it a descriptive name. For this example, we’ll call ours “Scrapless Press Addresses”.
The top row (1) is sectioned out for your headers. It’s already highlighted for you so you can start typing. For a mailing list, the basic headers are going to be Name, Address 1, Address 2 (for apartment, suite or floor number), City, State and Zip Code. So type the word “Name” into the first cell, then press the tab key and type “Address 1″, then tab… When you’re done you should have column headers for A-F. You’re almost done!
From the Form menu, select Create a Form. A window will pop-up showing you the form fields that will be used to collect your addresses. You can give it a fancier title here as well as instructions, like “It’s time to send out holiday cards. Please give me your address”.
When you move your mouse over the column headers (Name, Address 1 etc.) you’ll notice it highlights and gives you an editing button. It looks like a pencil. Click this button to change the names of the headers to more descriptive titles. This won’t affect your spreadsheet. For example, you can change “Name” to a question, like “To whom should I address the envelope?) I know, a bit formal but you get the idea.
You can also doll it up a bit with a theme. I didn’t see a Christmas theme but they do offer some basic designs to make your form look a bit more inviting. Now click the “Save” button on the top right.
That’s it. You’re ready to sit back and have your holiday mailing list create itself. You can get the web address to the form by clicking the link at the bottom of the pop-up window, or e-mail the list if you have a Gmail account.
Happy Holidays!
