.TH letter "" "" "/rdb Command"
.PC "Print form letters from a mailing list"
\fBletter \fIletter.1 ... \fB< \fImaillist\fR
.PP
.II "print letters"
.II "letters, print"
The command
.B letter
prints form letters from a standard letter and a mailing list.
It is obsolete, because the command
.B report
is so much more powerful and easier to use; but it is retained for
compatibility and as an example of shell programming.
.PP
.B letter
is a shell script, so you can be easily changed it
to handle different lists and letters.
To modify it, copy
.B letter
from
.B $RDB/bin/letter
to your local directory, then use your text editor to edit it.
Then you can modify it with a text editor
to handle any special features of your mailing list and letters.
.SH Example
If you have a file called
.B maillist
that looks like this:
.DM
Name    Ronald McDonald
Company McDonald's
Street  123 Mac Attack
City    Memphis
State   TENN
ZIP     30000
Phone   (111) 222-3333
.sp \n(pDu
Name    Chiquita  Banana
Company United Brands
Street  Uno Avenido de la Reforma
City    San Jose
State   Costa Rica
ZIP     123456789
Phone   1234
.DE
.PP
Assume, too, that the two parts of your letter are in two files.
.B letter.1
contains:
.DM
We have a new product that we want to sell to everyone at
.DE
.PP
And
.B letter.2
contains:
.DM
Please have everyone send us an order.  We will be very grateful.
.sp \n(pDu
Sincerely,
.sp \n(pDu
Mr. Marketing
Makeapile, Inc.
.DE
.PP
To assemble the letter files and the mailing list into one set of
mail-merged letters, type the following command:
.DM
	letter letter.1 letter.2 < maillist
.DE
.PP
This produces:
.DM
Ronald McDonald
McDonald's
123 Mac Attack
Memphis, TENN 30000
.sp
Dear Ronald McDonald:
.sp \n(pDu
We have a new product  that  we  want  to  sell  to  everyone  at
McDonald's.   Please  have everyone send us an order.  We will be
very grateful.
.sp
Sincerely,
.sp \n(pDu
Mr. Marketing
Makeapile, Inc.
.sp \n(pDu
\fI< ... spaces to bottom of letter ... >
.DE
.DM
Chiquita  Banana
United Brands
Uno Avenido de la Reforma
San Jose, Costa Rica 123456789
.sp
Dear Chiquita  Banana:
.sp \n(pDu
We have a new product that we want to sell to everyone at  United
Brands.   Please have everyone send us an order.  We will be very
grateful.
.sp \n(pDu
Sincerely,
Mr. Marketing
Makeapile, Inc.
.sp \n(pDu
\fI< ... spaces to bottom of letter ... >
.DE
.PP
The following sample letter program prints out the mailing name
and address, and the salutation \fBDear \fIName\fR.
It then \fBcat\fRs
.BR letter.1 ,
echos the company name, and finally cats
.BR letter.2 .
.B letter
writes its output to temporary file
.BR TMP ,
then
.BR nroff 's
the
.B TMP
file to the standard output.
.B nroff
reformats the file
(left and right justified) for each company name's length.
.PP
By studying the
.B letter
shell script and the COHERENT shell's documentation
.B (sh
or
.BR ksh) ,
you can assemble fancy, complex form letters.
.SH "See Also"
.B
label,
report
.R
.br
COHERENT Lexicon:
.B
cat,
ksh,
nroff,
troff,
sh
.R
.SO letter