HTML emails

[fuse]

Hi Guys,

Just had the request from a client requesting a HTML email. I believe that they do not want to use a third party software or application. They would just like me to create it and send them the link to the files on our reseller server space for them to manually put into an email and send our to their clients.

Can anyone advise on the best way to go about this, or provide us a link to a decent tutorial.

I am using a mac and have dreamweaver to generating the HTML and will either use Mail or Entourage to test it.

Cheers

[DougBarned]

Here's a link to a company I use... They have a good resources section which has useful information, templates and other bits and bobs on good HTML email campaigns.

Hope that helps!

/Doug

[KevJaques]

You may likely be forced to go back to using tables depending on which apps you are targeting with html emails. Beware Outlook 2007 does not render divs/css as it still uses word as its renderer and is only changed by the user.
Keep it simple imo and you can't go too wrong.

[DougBarned]

As it stands at the moment, Outlook 2010 will be continuing to use word as it's engine, so for emails, old school is the way to go. Tables, inline simple css and linked images.

[Wrams]

As it stands at the moment, Outlook 2010 will be continuing to use word as it's engine, so for emails, old school is the way to go. Tables, inline simple css and linked images.

<tables> Yea right. Tables are a thing of the past. If your a decent web developer then you will NOT use tables. Thats a horrible way to build a website. Use <div id="blahblah"></div> and CSS and learn to position your images and text. I can't beleive someone is saying use tables to build a website.

If your wanting an email link then use this

<a href="mailto:yourname@youremail.com">email text here</a>

Don't ever use <tables> unless you absolutely have to.

[Identity]

<tables> Yea right. Tables are a thing of the past. If your a decent web developer then you will NOT use tables. Thats a horrible way to build a website. Use <div id="blahblah"></div> and CSS and learn to position your images and text. I can't beleive someone is saying use tables to build a website.

If your wanting an email link then use this

<a href="mailto:yourname@youremail.com">email text here</a>

Don't ever use <tables> unless you absolutely have to.

Um I think you got the wrong end of the stick there. The previous poster was absolutely right...He said building Emails NOT Websites.

[Wrams]

Um I think you got the wrong end of the stick there. The previous poster was absolutely right...He said building Emails NOT Websites.

My bad. I did get it completely wrong then...LOL I thought he wanted to place emails in a website. My mistake.

[freewhosting]

Hi fuse,

I have previously developed a bespoke HTML e-mail solution in ASP.NET for one of my clients. The best way is to output the HTML in tables. You can't guarentee the same results using div/css layout.

Some good resources:

How To Code HTML Email Newsletters (All New Version)*|*ReachCustomersOnline.com

Building an HTML Email « Blog Miller Design

[SparkCreative]

I use this all the time. It's simple and it works: NewsLetter 2.6.1 software download - Mac OS X - VersionTracker

Build it in dreamweaver like a normal page, upload it to your web server and tell newsletter where it is and who you want to send it to. Then they can forward it on and it should all stay as it is.

A couple of things - keep it really simple - any effects or movement probably won't work for everyone it reaches. I even avoid rollovers. And try and make it into one image rather than lots of little bits (I'm sure there's a technical term for this), so that the email software can't break it up. I use HTML 3.2 as well - seems to work better.

That's how I do it, I'm sure the techy people will tell me I'm going wrong in some way, but it works, and the clients are happy.

[Flux3]

I spent ages trying to get just a html email stationery set up for a client that wanted all outgoing emails to have a footer with various logos but didnt want the emails to arrive with attachments. I set up all the files on a server, kept the design simple with a tables and inline CSS but never found a way to get it to work in Outlook 2007+.
I did see a cool html newsletter/email template on themeforest today for less then £10 if you want to save some design time and just tweak