Rules for mail-merge template files
A mail-merge template file must conform to the following specifications:
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The template file must be an HTML file with file extension .html or .htm.
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A template file can contain UNICODE, UTF-8 or ANSI characters. UTF-16 is not supported. If an HTML tag specifying charset is included in the file, the charset is sent with each email.
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Maximum file size (including the merge variables, but before the variables are expanded) is 64K–1 byte. If the file is 64K or larger, the email will not be sent.
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Maximum length of any single line in the file (after any merge variables are expanded) is 512 bytes, or 256 UNICODE characters. Any line that exceeds this limit will be omitted from the merged email. This may vary from user to user, as variables in the form are replaced with user-specific values.
A variable specification in a mail-merge template is enclosed in a pair of dollar signs, such as: $VarSpec$. (Also see the default templates installed with the applications to see how variables are used within a template file.)
A template can contain any combination of INI variables, environment variables, and system variables. Environment and system variables characterize the wizard operating environment—the current date and time, for example— and are not unique per user.
An INI variable is so named because its value is drawn from the associated INI file that the wizard checks as it processes users in a collection. The wizard generates this "scratch" INI file at the start of every run by copying parameter values from the wizard Task Parameters. The [User] section of the INI file contains only a single user’s data drawn from the collection data table in the SQL database, but this per-user data is rewritten to the INI file before processing of each user so that the correct values are available to the wizard for each user processed. The wizard can check the [User] section of the INI file for per-user values when generating a notification email.