Yes. Please note in your email that you are attaching a file(s), and/or sending us several emails to include the text and photos of your letter, so we can be sure everything you have emailed us has arrived.

We currently have Microsoft Word for Windows, Microsoft Publisher, Adobe PageMaker, and Lotus WordPro.

Yes. You may send us your photo(s) in .jpg, .gif, .tif, and other photo formats, as attachments to an email.

Our server can receive files up to 10 MB.

Please check your file size (see “Help” in your program to learn how to do this), then check the size of file your server can transmit. If your file size exceeds your email attachment capabilities, you can reduce the size of your file, in one or more of several ways:

1. If you wish to have black and white printing, convert your color photos to grayscale.
2. Send your text (formatted or unformatted) either as attachment to one email, or in the body of the email message, and photo(s) attached to one or several subsequent emails. Indicate clearly where the photos are to be placed, if you have formatted your letter, and we will “reassemble” the letter.
3. Send us just one page of your letter at a time, formatted (with photos, if included) and we will combine the pages here into one document.

Yes. However, please note that we are unable to make any additions, deletions, or corrections to a .pdf file. If your letter is to mail at the nonprofit postage rate, please include your organization name and address on side 1 of your letter, and our name/address wherever you would like (side 1 or 2, if your letter is two-sided). We will notify you of anything that needs amending in the .pdf, and ask you to make the change(s) in your program file, then send us a replacement .pdf for printing/sending.

We can receive a zipped file, but not with the .zip extension. Our IT Department here at CRISTA has had to block zipped files, due to their potential for carrying viruses that can elude virus-scanning software. To ensure that we receive the file, please notify us that you plan to send a zipped file, and we will email you specific directions as to how to change the file extension, to ensure the file gets to us.

Yes. Our equipment (new as of January 2006) produces excellent quality color reproduction. You may request a quote for printing your letter in full color. If it is two-sided, you have the option of printing one side full color, the other side black & white. You also may wish to send full color copies to a select group on your list, and black & white to the remainder. Please inquire about this option, if interested.

Full color means using black, cyan, magenta, and yellow inks in the color copier to replicate the colors in your letter. This copy is done here at CRISTA. Printing with colored ink (red, blue, green, brown, etc.) means everything in the letter is printed in one color of ink (or text in one color, headings, etc., in another), and is sent out to an offset printer.

As soon as your letter enters our Inbox, you will receive an automated response. Then we will open/answer every email within no more than 3 days of receipt, indicating what we have received from you, and asking any questions we may have about your letter.

Please email us again without attachments, asking if we received your file, and the date you sent it. Very likely we have not received your previous email.

Yes. Many of you do not have a digital camera and/or a scanner. We are happy to receive your photo prints, scan them, and include them in your letter.

We will do a brief Internet search for the font, to try to find it as a free downloadable. If we cannot find it, we will ask you if we may substitute another, similar font, or if you will email us the font as an attachment for use in your letter only.

Yes. We have several sources for high quality graphics (clip art). You may, of course, send us any you would like us to use, or indicate what you would like, including style ( drawing, photograph, cartoon, etc.)

Yes. We are all trained in scanning, sizing, cropping, and modifying your photos. We can remove extraneous objects from a photo, and can change the brightness and contrast, to enhance the quality of the photo for reproduction. However, we cannot improve photos that are blurry.

Yes. We can create a format/layout for you, or will closely follow your instructions for formatting/layout.

Our clearly stated turnaround time is no more than two weeks, except in November and December when our volume is heavy. We do everything possible to process/mail your letter in considerably less than two weeks. Factors affecting turnaround time are:

1. volume – how many letters we have to
process ahead of yours, and their complexity & size of those mailings;
2. staff availability;
3. infrequent, unanticipated delays caused by equipment problems, weather etc. While we cannot predict the day your letter will go out, we do not mind your emailing again near the end of the two-week period to ask if your letter has been sent.

CRISTA Ministries is a large, nine-department Christian nonprofit organization located in Seattle, Washington. For more information visit the CRISTA Web site at www.crista.org

Good question! We enter additions, deletions, and updates you send us, either with your letter or at other times. Sometimes recipients of your letter write or call us directly with an update. If a piece of mail is not deliverable as addressed, and the post office has a new address for that person, the post office returns the piece of mail to us with the updated address on an attached yellow sticker. We update our database frequently, and remail your letter to the new address. The post office also may indicate that for any one of a variety of reasons the mail is undeliverable. Then we mark that entry on your list as “undeliverable” and do not send any more of your letters to that address. You will receive a printout of all address updates after every letter you send. We can either send you a printed copy of the updates, or can email the file to you. Please check it closely, and let us know if you have further address updates.

Yes. We can mail you a printed copy, send you the list printed on labels, and/or email your list to you formatted in Microsoft Excel, a Word document, and /or a text file. Please indicate your preference.

Yes, if you have a large number of additions/deletions/updates. However, if you send us the entire list, please color code the entries to change, using, for example, yellow for new entries, red for deletions and green for updates. Otherwise, we must scroll through the entire list, comparing it entry by entry to what we have in our database. This is tedious and time consuming. If you have a small number of modifications, please send us just that list, if possible, in the body of the email, or as an attachment (in Word or Excel, for example), or printed or handwritten, if you mail us your letter. We can, of course, replace your existing list with a new updated one, but this is generally more costly than just entering the updates.

This $25 per year fee helps defray expenses not covered by our invoiced costs. These expenses included equipment maintenance, upgrades to machinery and computer programs, sending you our own newsletter with pertinent mailing information, etc.