In conjunction with some volunteer stuff I do (fundraising,
coordinating an upcoming family reunion), I send out occasional form
emails.  I like to do a "merged mail" because it produces more
personalized-looking output, because I don't want recipients seeing
each other's email addresses, and because I know some recipients have
filters set up to throw out things that come to them via bcc.

I've been using Pegasus mail for this.  It's not that hard to use, and
it's free.  But the downside is I can't include embedded graphics in
the message, and I have had Pegasus crash weirdly in the middle of
sending, without noting how many emails it had sent.  This meant I had
to resend everything, which looked sloppy to anyone who I emailed
twice.

I'm looking for a simple and free way to do these email merges that
would represent an improvement over Pegasus.

Someone I know told me that Word 2000 can do this, and even integrate
with any email software you like (I use the current ad version of
Eudora for most of my email).  But it takes me much longer to figure
out Word merges than it ever does to create what it is I'm trying to
merge, and the extra dimension of merging to email has made it that
much harder for me to figure out.

So my questions:

1. Can someone recommend a good online step by step Word mail merge
tutorial?  Especially one that shows merging to email?

2. *IS* Word even the software I should be using for this task?

3. If Word isn't the best selection for the kind of email merges I
want to do (I hope I've described what I want adequately above), then
what is?

Yes, I've cross-posted, but I think each group to which I've posted
has subscribers who could offer a useful suggestion.