Free software for end-to-end newsletter creation may be a little hard to come by, but there is a lot of free software out there that will do each part of the process.

For content creation, the best free software you're likely to come across is OpenOffice (openoffice.org). This will provide a Microsoft Word like application (Writer), an Excel-like spreadhseet (Calc) for storing addresses, and other features for editing pages, drawing images, and similar. If you need to actually touch-up images, I highly recommend paint.net for Windows (getpaint.net), or GimpShop for a variety of platforms including Linux (it is a bit harder to learn than Paint.net).

You may already own great software for publishing though. Microsoft's own Publisher product, a part of some version of Office, is a great tool for laying out newsletters and other publications. Adobe InDesign is likewise a very excellent tool for exactly this sort of task. Even more custom tools, like QuarkXPress, are available, but these are probably overkill for what you're trying to do, and are much more expensive even than Publisher or InDesign.

You'll probably want all your documents to go out as PDF. PDFCreator is a great piece of free software to get you started, and it can also save whole pages as JPEG images or other file types if you need that. It wouldn't hurt you to buy Adobe's full Acrobat product (not just Acrobat reader). The integrated ability to select several files of varied types (say a Word document, an Excel sheet, some images, and a text file) and with a single click combine them into a PDF is amazing in its time-saving. But Acrobat is not free, though in this case it is well worth the money.

As far as creating a great newsletter generally, remmeber you are asking people to invest in it. They are, even if they are your clients or colleagues, investing their time in reading what you have sent. If they feel they could have better spent their time doing other work, cleaning out their fridge, or taking a nap, they won't likely read your newsletter again. So from day one, you need to add as much value to the material as possible. Without knowing your industry, surely you should include a tips section related to your overall content, a topical news section about things going on that impact your industry (be SPECIFIC, we all know the economy is bad, but how does a news policy by agency x impact me as a consumer in your industry?), and a did-you-know section for minor details that may have major weight or importance to your readers. Some people like to put in flulff, like recipes in a financial newsletter. Unless you know for a fact that a very large pecentage of your readership wants that, skip it and focus on real value.

E-mail is another issue entirely. Free e-mail services will limit the number of addresses you can send to at any one time, and potentially the total number in any day (so 50 recipients is fine, 500 you might have to send out as two seperate e-mails, 5,000 and you might be banned for commercial use of spam). Here's where you need to look into commercial email contact programs and services. I personally like Constant Contact quite a bit, but you need to shop around for the services, features and pricing that are right for you now, and growing forward.
Source(s):
http://www.getpaint.net
http://www.openoffice.org
http://www.adobe.com/acrobat/
http://www.constantcontact.com/index.jsp

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Yes, there are free services that you can use to create email newsletter. The best service that I know is http://www.feedburner.com

Before you can create an email newsletter, you must first have a blog. To create a free blog, you can use http://www.blogger.com or http://www.wordpress.com

If you already have a blog, follow these steps to create an email newsletter:
1. Sign-up to feedburner
2. After signing-in, burn a feed by typing the url of your blog and follow the steps provided by feedburner.
3. After burning your feed, your blog will appear on your account. Click your blog link, then click on the publicize tab, select email subscriptions, and copy & paste the code to your blog.
4. After doing that, your readers can now subscribe to your blog. They will receive an email newsletter once you update your blog.
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http://www.mailchimp.com/index.phtml

Mailchimp is an online application that will help you create professional e-newsletters.

The most important part of e-newsletters isn't necessarily the technical aspects of creating or sending them, but it's tracking who views it. It is very important to know if your newsletter is being read so that you will know if your subscribers appreciate the content and reading it. Mailchimp has advanced analytics.

Mailchimp also has the ability to help you create attractive looking e-newsletters very easily.

There is a free option. Give it a try.
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If you have a website, your hosting provider may have PHPList available as an application. It's relatively easy to set up and it's free. It includes all the important list management features including unsubscription and bounce notification. Did I mention it's FREE? If you don't have a website yet, scout a hosting service that offers PHPList as one of its applications.
Source(s):
http://www.phplist.org

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Try www.constantcontact.com

Its a simple, template-based website that allows the creator to send to contact lists of just a few, or even thousands. I've used this at the past two companies I've worked for and its incredibly user-friendly and quick.
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I found this website which is really good for creating enewsletters online:
http://www.enewslettersonline.com/
Source(s):
http://www.enewslettersonline.com/

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