Using a Filename-to-Email Associations to Send Emails

AutoDocMail plug-in for Adobe® Acrobat®

Introduction

This tutorial demonstrates one way to distribute files with the AutoDocMail™ plug-in, that do not contain the recipient’s email addresses as part of their content. This method works by associating unique filenames with email addresses, configured as a custom filename-to-email address map. Each filename is unique, and can be manually associated with specific email addresses. The plug-in identifies these and automatically assigns them to be emailed to the correct recipient. This is an alternative way to using a “keywords-to-emails” map which sends emails to recipients based on specific 'keywords' that feature within attachments – see the separate tutorial on how to do this here.

Sample Documents Description

The documents being distributed in this tutorial are single-page PDF paystubs titled "PayStub1" "PayStub2" and "PayStub3". These will be associated with separate email addresses via the 'filename-to-email' map - i.e.: any file named "PayStub1" will be emailed to "tutorial-1@evermap.com", "PayStub2" to "tutorial-2@evermap.com", and so on.

Prerequisites

You need a copy of Adobe® Acrobat® (Standard or Pro) along with the AutoDocMail™ plug-in installed on your computer in order to use this tutorial. Both are available as trial versions.

Step 1 - Open the "Auto-Email Documents" Dialog

Start the Adobe® Acrobat® application. Now select Plugins > Auto-Email Documents… from the main Acrobat menu.

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Step 2 - Open the Email Settings

In the "Auto-Email Documents" dialog, press the "Settings..." button.

Step 3 - Edit Settings

This opens a dialog showing a list of saved settings configurations. Either click the “New…” button to configure new settings, or double-click on “Default” settings to modify these. The default settings can also be changed by selecting "Default" and pressing the "Edit..." button.

Step 4 - Configure Processing Options

Open the "Document Processing" tab by selecting it in the settings bar.

Ensure that the "Send input documents ‘as is’…” option is selected. This is because the files being sent via this method are already single files, ready for sending (the plug-in is not going to split a larger file into individual ones for automatic distribution).

Then ensure that the “Do not send documents with number of pages outside of the following range” option is left unchecked. These settings are necessary so that the files being sent are not modified by the plug-in. The documents are being sent 'manually' and are already the correct length etc.

Next, proceed to the "Email Settings" tab.

On this screen, select the “Send separate emails to each recipient...” option to ensure that recipients who are linked to the same file both receive emails.

Once done, proceed to the "Email Extraction" settings page.

Step 5 - Open 'Filename-to-email' Settings

Select the “Use custom filename-to-email address mapping” option, to activate the “Map Filenames To E-mails" button. Press it to access the mapping configuration dialog.

Step 6 - Create Mapping Table

Use this screen to create the mapping table, by adding entries one-per-line. Type the filename, followed by a comma, followed by the email address of the corresponding recipient(s). Each line should contain only one filename and its recipient(s). If you need to specify more than one recipient per filename, separate the email addresses with a semicolon. This means that the same file will be sent to all of these addresses:

According to the example shown below, the "paystub3.pdf" file will be sent to both 'john.doe@mycompany.com' and 'payroll@mycompany.com'.

IMPORTANT: If a file name contains a comma character, then surround it with quotation marks using this format: '“paystub, John Doe.pdf”, john.doe.@mycompany.com'.

Specifying Optional Email Parameters

Use the following syntax to specify optional email parameters such as “Subject”, “CC”, “BCC”, “Filename”, “Greeting”, “From”, “Replyto”:

"John Doe Junior", invoices@acme.com|subject:Enter a custom subject line|greeting:Dear John Doe Junior|cc:info@acme.com


It is possible to enter one or more optional keywords separated by the | symbol. Keyword names are case-insensitive.

Optional: Saving Mappings to a Text File

Optionally press "Save to Text File..." to save this mapping configuration in *.csv format. This could later be loaded via the "Load from Text File..." button to use the same mapping under a different AutoDocMail settings configuration - or be given to another user to process documents in the same way.

Select a suitable location to save this file. Optionally edit the default file name "Files to Email Mapping Table" before pressing "Save".

Step 7 - Save and Exit Settings

Once the mapping is complete, press "OK" to exit this window.

Press "OK" again.

Press "Close" to proceed to processing your documents.

Step 8 - Select the Files to be Sent

In the "Auto-Email Documents" dialog, press the "Add Files..." button to select the PDF file(s) that need to be distributed. In this example, these are the individual PDF files that were mapped to email addresses in step 6.

Locate the files, select them, and press "Open".

The input file paths and total numbers of pages will now be listed in the dialog. Press "Next >" to proceed.

Step 9 - Review Email Recipients

Once the documents have been processed, the “Confirm Email Recipients” dialog opens. The plug-in will have identified the filenames and assigned the emails using the recipient email addresses listed under "Email To:" on the left. If the same document is being sent to multiple email recipients, their address are separated by a semicolon ";".

Double-click on a record to preview the attachment and/or manually edit the email message for this recipient (this is not essential, but recommended to verify that any sensitive documents were assigned to the correct recipients).

Use the checkboxes to control which recipients will receive emails/attachments. Press "Send" to proceed to sending the documents.

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