You have a choice of two pages where you can press a button to begin sending a message to your list. In the Lists Control Panel, you can press the Send Message link on the same line as the List Name.  OR in the Subscribers Control Panel, you can use the Send Message button.

In either case, you come to a page which is a form for sending email to the list. The first field is the Subject Line for the email message. The next field, labeled From Line, is the email address that the message will come from. In other words, it is the Reply Email Address.  It is already filled in with the address you used when you setup the list. But you can type in a different one, if you like.

Then you must specify the email message in one of two ways. It is either a plain Text Message which you enter into the box labeled Text Message (leaving the field called Page Address of HTML Message blank.)  If you want to send an HTML message instead of a plain text message, then you would not fill in the text box.  Instead, you would enter a URL into the field labeled Page Address of HTML Message. The email message would be taken from that page.  I.E., that page IS your email message.

If you want to use an SMTP server, then check the checkbox labeled "Use SMTP Server."  You must have already filled in an SMTP server name in the System Configuration. The name of the SMTP server that you selected will appear on that line.

(Highly recommended: use an SMTP server instead of depending upon the email server of your webhost, as it will solve a lot of problems. Each webhost has it's own limitations and restrictions on the amount of email you can send -- and some won't let you send email at all!)

Note the checkbox labeled Put Unsubscribe Notice at Message End?  It's a good idea to leave that checked, as it's almost a legal requirement these days, that an email newsletter have an unsubscribe option on it. And not only will there be an unsubscribe link, but there will also be a link that allows the subscribers to change their email address, if they wish.

Now, suppose you have one or several email addresses NOT on your subscribers list, but you want them to get the same message.  Just fill in those email addresses in the field labeled Optional BCC: Send Also To Email(s).  Those email addresses MUST be separated by a semi-colon (;)

Then just press the Send Message button.

But the messages aren't sent yet.  There's one more step.  You come to a page labeled Ready To Start Emailing.  Read what it says on that page:

xx subscribers are in the list. When you press the Start Emailing button below, a blank browser window will be spawned. This is the window in which the mailing is happening. It will remain blank until the mailing is complete. To stop the mailing, close that blank window AND you must go to the Subscribers Control Panel to press the Stop Emailing button in the Manage Log screen.

As each email is sent, a status line is written to a log file. To view the current contents of that file, periodically refresh this page, so you can watch the progress of the emailing in the Progress box. At any time thereafter, you can also use the Manage Log button on the Subscribers Control Panel.

To continue an interrupted mailing, use the Continue button. This will NOT send an email to any subscribers already logged as a success in the log file.

That may take a bit of explanation.  First, it shows how many subscribers are in the list that you're emailing. Next it explains that the emailing will occur in a separate window -- NOT the current window. At any time, when the emailing is going on, you can refresh the current window to see the progress of the emailing. To stop the emailing in the middle, you close the other window. But you need to also tell the system to close the log file. And that is done by going back to the Subscribers Control Panel, pressing the Manage Log button, and then the Stop Emailing button.

This Manage Log routine is used to view the log file that is created as the mailing progresses (or ends.) It also lets you know which emails were successful and which were not. If you want to email the ones marked Failed, just use the Continue Mailing button instead of the Start Emailing button.  This will NOT send any emails to the ones marked Success!

Note that you can test this process without actually sending any emails, if you set the Test Mode field to a Y in the system configuration.

OK?  That takes care of emailing. Now, let's look at the Export - Import page...