Including message body when emailing mail merged attachments

Word 2000, Access 97, Outlook Express 5.5: We succeed in saving and using an MS Word VBA macro to merge name fields from records in an Access database into a Word form letter, then email the output .doc’s as attachments to email addresses which are likewise in the Access database. Succeed also manually, without using a macro. The emails appear in the Outbox of Outlook Express.

When using such macro-automated- or manual mail merge, is it possible also to get a uniform, unmerged plain text email message body into the emails?

Both in Word’s Tools/Options/General/Email Options, and in the macro, I have tried nominating a predefined signature to be used in new msgs, but that didn’t appear in the merged emails.

Thanks to all in anticipation of kind help.