Total noob here. I want to send out a quick and dirty newsletter.

Can I prepare the newsletter in MS Word, save as html, then paste the raw html into the "Rich Text Content" area of the Newsletter Manger?

I am imagining I'll have to ftp the images in my newsletter into the images folder for my shop, then refer to the images in the newsletter like so:
http://www.mydomain.com/shop/images/filename.jpg
Am I on the right track here?

How do I actually send the newsletter when done?

Finally, if I want to start with the premade email_template_newsletters.html,
do I just paste the contents of that file into the ""Rich Text Content" area of the Newsletter Manger, then start editing it?

Thanks for any help.