CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

I've just spent the morning wandering around a bit in civiCRM code, learning how to customize the e-mail civiCRM sends as a receipt for contributions and other payments.  As it's not particularly documented (that I found - maybe I missed it), I thought I'd share so it's there for the next person searching.  Hopefully somebody else can check me to make sure I've done it right and I'm not spreading bad info.

The two key files that need to be modified are (in Joomla format)
\administrator\components\com_civicrm\civicrm\templates\CRM\Contribute\Form\Message.tpl
\administrator\components\com_civicrm\civicrm\templates\CRM\Contribute\Form\ReceiptMessageOffline.tpl

(in Droopal format)
\sites\all\modules\civicrm\templates\CRM\Contribute\Form\Message.tpl
\sites\all\modules\civicrm\templates\CRM\Contribute\Form\ReceiptMessageOffline.tpl

To add a customized First Name/ Last Name Greating, insert the following at the very beginning of each file:
{ts}Dear{/ts} {$formValues.receipt_from_name}

The text of the message is on line 5 of Message.tpl and line 7 of ReceiptMessageOffline.tpl
I made it a little more personal, including a sincerely from the Executive Director (me) and I changed "Please Print this" to "You may wish to save this receipt for your records."  (Some of my donors would take exception to an encouragement to kill a tree).

May I suggest that both of these changes be made in future civiCRM versions?  People always like to be addressed by their names and it would probably be best not to suggest printing e-mails.

Nice!  I guess I should have spent the morning upgrading instead!