Menu 10.7 - Correspondence

To create letters/notices, you must select a letter/notice editor and then complete the steps for the editor that you choose. This section covers the details of creating letters/notices.

You can choose one of three letter/notice editors:

CU·Documents, which interfaces with Microsoft Word.
The Collector System editor, which comes standard with The Collector System.
A generic word processor, such as Notepad or WordPad, which comes installed with Microsoft Windows.

The following table displays a comparison of each letter/notice editor by system requirement. To judge the ease of using a specific letter/notice editor, a sliding scale is used from 1 to 4, where 1 means easy and 4 means difficult.

Editor Requirement	CU·Documents	The Collector System Editor	Generic Work Processor
Hardware	All systems must have a mapped network drive (a common shared drive) that they can write to Unix requirements include SAMBA The client needs to know how to configure a network file share on the host system	No additional hardware needed	Workstation
Software	Microsoft Word 2003 or higher CU·Emulate version 2.4 for each user and workstation that prints letters Windows.NET framework 1.1 for each user CU·Documents executable file	No additional software needed	Notepad WordPad Any word processor that does not use formatting tools
Performance	Impacts other network PCs	No performance impact	No performance impact
Formatting	Complete formatting including graphics	Limited formatting with use of @codes Keyboard use only	Limited formatting Write free-form text using @codes
Ease of use	1 to 2	4 to 5	1 to 2
Ease of configuration	4 to 5	No configuration required	1 to 2
Knowledge needed	Understanding of merge fields in order to configure letters/notices	Knowledge of @codes	Ability to work with @codes Know the path name for the word processor on your workstation and how to set it
Training requirements	Variable number of hours training time depending on your configuration	Help screen	No training
Error reporting	Has error reporting capabilities per letter just like The Collector System	Does not have an error log	Does not have an error log
Notes	Not a replacement for letter outsourcing		Is considered the "light" version of The Collector System editor. It produces almost the same output. Does not allow you to use merge codes to access @codes

The following table displays each word processor's functionality.

Function	CU·Documents	The Collector System Editor	Generic Word Processor
Add graphics	X
Add text	X	X	X
Archive (save) documents	X
Create and edit letter definitions	X	X	X
Create and edit letter sets	X	X	X
Create and edit templates		X	X
Create section breaks	X
Format headers and footers	X		X
Generate samples	X	X	X
Print in duplex format	X	X	X
Print legal letters	X	X	X
Print multiple page documents	X	X	X
Configure acknowledgment formats		X	X
Configure cancellation formats		X	X
Configure multiple forms	X	X	X
Configure reactivation formats		X	X
Use @codes for page formatting		X	X
Use merge fields for page formatting	X