Sending Electronic Greeting Cards

You don't have to buy a software program to make your own greeting cards if you want to send them over the Internet, that is. There are many Web sites that offer free electronic cards that you can personalize and send to friends and family, as easily as you send email messages.

Popular Greeting Card Sites

Most online greeting card sites offer their services for free; they make their money by selling advertising. Other sites charge a small fee or offer basic cards for free and more deluxe cards for a price. In any case, check the terms and requirements before you start clicking.

Here are some of the most popular online greeting cards sites on the Web:

• Beat Greets (www.beatgreets.com)

• Birthday Cards.com (www.birthdaycards.com)

• Blue Mountain (www.bluemountain.com)

• DaySpring (www.dayspring.com)

• eFun.com (www.efun.com)

• Hallmark E-Cards (www.hallmark.com)

• Yahoo! Greetings (greetings.yahoo.com)

Learn how to connect to the Internet and use Internet Explorer in Chapters 21 and 22.

Sending a Card at Yahoo! Greetings

The two biggest online greeting card sites are Blue Mountain and Yahoo! Greetings. Let's take a quick look at how to send an online card, using Yahoo! Greetings as an example.

1. Launch Internet Explorer and connect to the Yahoo! Greetings Web site (greetings.yahoo.com), shown in Figure 18.3.
   
   

   Figure 18.3. The many different types of online greeting cards available at Yahoo! Greetings.

   
   
   

2. Click the type of card you want to send; this displays a selection of available cards.
   
   

3. Click the specific card you want to send; this displays the card at full size, as shown in Figure 18.4.
   
   

   Figure 18.4. Sending an online greeting card.

   

   
   

4. Click the Personalize and Send button to display the Personalize Your Greeting form.
   
   

5. Enter the required information (your name and email address, the recipient's name and email address, and an optional personal message).
   
   

6. Click the Preview Your Greeting button to preview your card.
   
   

7. Click the Send This Greeting button to send the card.
   
   

Your recipient now receives an email message from Yahoo! Greetings. This message doesn't include the card itself, but rather informs the recipient that they have a card waiting for them on the Yahoo! Greetings site. When the recipient clicks the link included in the email message, he or she is taken to the Yahoo! Greetings site, where your personalized greeting card is displayed.

The Absolute Minimum

Here are the key points to remember from this chapter:

• When you want to create your own greeting cards, banners, albums, and so forth, you need home publishing software.

• Popular home publishing programs include Greeting Card Factory, Print Shop, and PrintMaster.

• You can also send greeting cards electronically, over the Internet, from a variety of greeting card Web sites including Blue Mountain and Yahoo! Greetings.