Google Docs newsletter template: how to build one you can reuse

Does Google Docs have a newsletter template?#

No. Google's help page for templates says you can use Google-created templates "like resumes, budgets, and order forms", and its list of insertable use cases covers blog posts, press releases, business proposals, journals, project roadmaps, marketing plans, sales emails, interview guides, onboarding guides, training manuals, reading lists and class notes. A newsletter is absent from both lists, which is the whole reason this page exists.

Build the frame once inside Google Docs and treat it as the file you copy for every issue.

How do I make a newsletter in Google Docs?#

This is the build. Do it once, name the file clearly, and then stop editing it: from that point you only copy it.

1. Open Google Docs and start a blank document. Name it something like Newsletter master, not Newsletter October.
2. Set the page you want: File > Page setup, then pick margins and orientation. Narrow margins stop your columns collapsing.
3. Type the three lines every issue repeats: the publication name, the issue date, and a one sentence description of who this is for.
4. Insert a one row, two column table with Insert > Table. That is your first story block. Tables are how you get columns to stay put.
5. Put a placeholder line inside each cell, like Headline here and Two short paragraphs here, so nobody has to think about layout in a hurry.
6. Add Insert > Image where the photo goes and type a caption under it, so a missing photo does not leave a hole.
7. Give every section the same two or three heading levels, under Format > Text styles. Reusing the same styles is what makes issue four look like issue one.
8. Add a footer with the contact details and the unsubscribe instruction, because that block never changes.
9. Close the file. From now on you only ever make a copy of it.

How do I reuse the same layout every issue?#

Open the master file, then choose File > Make a copy, give it the month, and press Ok. Google documents this command as the way to duplicate a file you want to reuse, and the copy is yours to overwrite.

One warning: the copy keeps the master's name as its title until you change it, so rename it in the first line of that dialog, or you will end up with five files called Newsletter master copy copy.

Where is the template gallery and what is it good for?#

Google documents two ways in. On a computer, open Google Docs and click Template gallery at the top right, then click a template; a copy of it opens. Inside a document that is already open, use File > New > From a template, scroll the gallery, select one and press Insert.

The gallery is still worth a look for the parts around a newsletter: a proposal layout, a report, a sales email. Google notes some template features are limited to work or school accounts, so what your personal account sees can be a shorter list than what a colleague sees.

To stop Docs showing recent templates on your home screen, the documented path is the Docs homepage, Menu > Settings, then turn Display recent templates on home screens off.

How do I share the master file without someone rewriting it?#

Google publishes the roles in Drive as Viewer, Commenter, Editor and Owner, and the difference between them is exactly the difference between a master file that survives a year and one that gets overwritten in week three.

Give the writers Commenter on the master and Editor on that month's copy. Google adds two details that matter here. Access you put on a folder is inherited by every file inside it, and you cannot hand someone less access to one file once they hold more access to its folder, so keep the master in a folder of its own. Owners can also decide whether viewers and commenters may download, print or copy the file, from Share Settings.

What is the difference between a gallery template and my master file?#

A Google gallery template is a file Google wrote and you copy. Your master file is a layout you wrote and your team copies. The mechanics are the same, File > Make a copy, which is why the distinction confuses people: nothing about the gallery item is more durable than your own document, and nothing about it is designed for a newsletter, because Google lists no newsletter in it.

The one place they diverge is updates. A gallery template never changes after you copy it, and your master will not either unless somebody edits it. Decide now who is allowed to edit the master, and the answer to that question stops being an argument in month four.

Can I email a Google Docs newsletter to my list?#

You can move the words, but a document is not an email, and each route costs you something.

• Copy the text into a new message. Fast, and the reader gets an unformatted wall on a phone.
• Attach it as a PDF from File > Download. It opens as a file, most phone mail apps show a download prompt, and nothing about it is a link you can click.
• Merge names from a Google Sheet into Gmail with an add-on. This does put each person's name in the message, and it still sends from your own mailbox.
• Write the newsletter in a sending tool instead, which is the only option that produces HTML a mail app can render.

Your own mailbox has a daily send limit, so a real list can stop the send part way through. There is no unsubscribe link, so one annoyed reader has a reply button instead. And there is no report, so you cannot tell whether the issue was opened or bounced straight back.

Can I write the newsletter in Google Docs and send it from Gmail?#

Yes, and Google documents the whole route. Inside a Doc on a computer, choose Insert > Building blocks > Email draft, or type @email and press Enter. The block gives you a To field where you can type @ and search your contacts, a subject line, and a body you format like any document. Then click Preview in Gmail at the top left of that draft, make any last changes in the pop-up Gmail window, and press Send.

Two conditions come with it. Google states the draft is sent from the account you are logged in to, so it leaves from your mailbox with your daily limit and no unsubscribe link. And Google notes that to preview the draft in Gmail your Google Account language has to be set to English.

Where it is useful: a note to five board members, a school letter to a handful of parents, a launch message to the people who asked for it. Those are drafts worth writing where the words are easy to write.

What does a mail merge add-on add, and what does it leave out?#

An add-on reads a column of addresses from a Google Sheet, fills a template with each person's name, and sends the messages through Gmail. That fixes the two things a plain Doc cannot do: the name in the greeting and one message per address instead of one message with everyone in the To field.

• It still sends from your mailbox, so the daily send cap of that account is the cap on your list.
• There is still no unsubscribe link, so a reader who wants out has to reply or mark you as spam.
• There is still no report, so you learn nothing about opens, clicks or the addresses that bounced back.
• The add-on is somebody else's code reading your contacts and your drafts, so read what it asks for before you install it.

For a few hundred names once a month, an add-on is a reasonable answer and costs nothing. Past that, the parts you are missing are the list handling and the delivery, not the typing. That is the wall most of these searches end at.

Why does a newsletter written in Docs look wrong in an inbox?#

A document is laid out for a full page on your screen. An email is laid out for a narrow column, inside somebody else's app, on a phone, sometimes with images switched off. Page margins, columns and headers do not carry over, because an email client reads none of them.

Two more things go wrong. Photos pasted from the web arrive as giant files that mobile mail apps shrink badly, and a font you installed but the reader did not is swapped for something else. The fixes are boring and well known: the font stack that survives, and pictures hosted somewhere the reader can fetch.

What belongs inside a newsletter master file?#

Five blocks, in the same order every issue. A nameplate line, the issue date, one story that carries the issue, two or three short items, and a standing footer with your contact details and the unsubscribe instruction. Anything else belongs to a single issue and does not go in the master at all.

Put placeholder text in every slot: Headline here, Two short paragraphs here, Photo with a caption here. A master file with real October copy in it gets copied in March with October still in the second paragraph, which is the failure that makes people lose faith in the whole method.

Keep one paragraph in the master that says what the file is for and who may edit it. It is the cheapest form of governance available in a document, and it survives every copy.

How do I keep twelve issues looking like one newsletter?#

Reuse the same three things and nothing else: the heading styles, the table structure, and the position of the photo slot. Set the heading levels once under Format > Text styles in the master, and every copy inherits them, so the only decision left each month is which words go in which block.

Then freeze two numbers: how many items appear in an issue, and how long each one runs. A newsletter that is four stories and 600 words every month is a habit a reader can plan around. A newsletter that is one story one week and nine the next is a document someone else had a week.

When should you stop using Docs for this?#

• More readers than your mailbox will carry in a day.
• Any list where people should be able to leave it themselves.
• Any send where you want to know what happened after it went.
• Any issue where one reader must not see another reader's address, which is covered in emailing many people safely.

Keep Docs for the draft. Write the words there if you like the editor, then paste them into something built for delivery. The layout work you did in the master file is not wasted: it is the same five blocks, only in a shape a mail app can render.

Common questions