How do you add HTML into an email in Blackberry?
I've tried multipart emails, but that does not seem to work. I am asking how to send an HTML formatted email from an application running on a Blackberry, if I am wording too vaguely, please let me know how to rephrase my question
All HTML emails work the same way - the HTML is in the email body and any images must have a fully-qualified url (http://...).
CSS support is limited and must be defined inline statements (style="") on each element (no stylesheets). Background images are not supported. Tables must be used for layouts (awful but true).
You are talking about the HTML mailers, which are tricky and depend on the client Machine, where they will be eventually seen. Your HTML should be fully table layout based, Styles need to be inline. Below is an HTML mailer that is like almost perfect to display correctly on any device, whether it is MAC or PC or iPad or Blackberry.
http://www.dreamincode.net/iem/display.php?M=2016&C=f945ef50b90408df6b2eb3054df75e79&S=63&L=1&N=25
If you view the source of this page, you would come to know how the mailers need to be build out.
To send the mailers as a mass mailing list you need an Email Marketing Software's.
Related
I am trying to adjust the content of an HTML email based on the client which is being used to read the email (along with an option to default it to a generic content).
Is it possible using just HTML and CSS (since js will not work with HTML emails) to achieve this ?
I looked for possible ways to do this and found that conditional HTML like can be used to check if client is outlook / lotus.
However, I also want to add checks for gmail and apple mail.
Is it possible using 'media' tags in CSS ?
Appreciate the help :)
Conditional HTML is your best bet to check against various email clients. It really depends on the email client itself, for example, Apple Mail is pretty forgiving with many CSS properties, but GMAIL strips out all CSS in the head. It's a balancing act! Check out caniuse.com to see which properties you can and can't use in email :)
I'm just trying to send a little Christmas e-message around my friends/family, I've built it to be fully responsive etc the way I always do. However as it's just for friends I'm not going to send it via MailChimp which usually sends everything for me no problem.
The way I'm trying to send it is by opening the index.html file, selecting all, copying, then pasting into Gmail. This has always worked fine for me in the past, and does work. However this is my first responsive email that I'm trying to send this way, and it seems the media queries don't get brought across this way, at least not in the gmail -> hotmail test that I just did (Resizing window etc does nothing, just shows the desktop version).
Is there a better way of sending an already built HTML email, rather than just copying/pasting in Gmail?
Unfortunately, Gmail does not support the <style> tag. Media queries can only be called in the <style> tag, and not inline, therefore Gmail doesn't support them.
Here is the support chart.
I would suggest you stick to an ESP like Mailchimp for sending html email. But while you are playing around in Gmail, here is a tool that may help you debug issues with your email code.
The selected answer is not actually correct! Gmail strips IDs and classes from the email body itself, but the style tag IS retained.
You can use the following:
*[summary~='fakeclassname'] {
styles: here;
}
"Summary" is one of the attributes that Gmail does not strip out. After it occurred to me what Gmail was actually doing to emails I found this article that breaks it down in detail:
http://freshinbox.com/blog/interactive-emails-in-gmail-using-css-attribute-selectors/
There are helpful links on that page that get deeper into Gmail-specific targeting.
Note: the Gmail app does strip the style tag, and with a rising market share (Android no longer has a native app and pushes people to use the Gmail app) should be considered a starting point for mobile-first email development.
I'm trying to figure out where to put some code in an email. You know how you can get newsletters with styling and images, etc? I wanted to send some out but I cant figure out where to put the code. Do you add the images as attachments? Do you put the code in the body?
or should you upload the .html file as well?
Build the page as a normal HTML page. Use TABLES (yes, TABLES) for your layout. You can use inline CSS, but you cannot use a stylesheet. All images must be fully-qualified (http://yoursite.com/images/). Don't make it wider than about 650 pixels. No JavaScript.
View your newsletter HTML in a browser
Do a select-all, and copy
Paste it into a new message and send it to yourself
See what you end up with
Try other mail clients
Various mail clients will mess with your markup and your styles. What works on Gmail will look like poop on Outlook etc. It will be an exercise in frustration. Test, test, test.
Assume all images will NOT BE SHOWN when the user originally views the email.
Here's a good guide to what works and what doesn't:
http://www.campaignmonitor.com/css/
My advice: keep it simple - a logo and some text and a link to the real newsletter. Making email newsletters is a fine art, and frankly, people prefer to read them in a browser where they behave like a web page.
Sending out HTML emails eigh?
There can be a lot of problems you will quickly encounter, mostly revolving around each email client having their own different way of handling things. The aim here is to keep your email as small, simple, and unbroken as possible.
The message:
Each language has it's own requirements, you need to check with the language you are using to see what is easier, to do it inline as part of the mailing script, or to have it inserted through a HTML file, etc. So for more details here, post the language you're using.
Layout:
This is where message simplicity comes in. The best layouts are usually the most simple ones, especially considering not all email clients are 100% HTML standards compliant. You won't know how big your client's viewing window for the email will be nor can you force it to any size or pop it out. Remember that it's goal is to be a message, not a webpage. Usually simple flexible/elastic tables will do the trick just fine if you have anything more advanced than simple paragraphs.
Images:
Link everything statically (statically means http:\\www. ....mypicture.png as opposed to dynamic linking which looks like this \images\mypicture.png) hosted from your server. The reason for this is so that you will have no broken links, your email will be smaller in size (as opposed to attatching). The downside is that some clients may ask about showing pictures. The cold hard truth is that this cannot be avoided no matter which method you use (See for more details).
Links:
Again, link everything statically. Local/dynamic link's won't work and your recipients will be mighty unhappy.
CSS
Either have your CSS classes at the top, or everything in-line (< ... style="..." />). You don't want to attach a CSS file, it's messy and unconventional.
Scripts
Inline or at the top of your file, for the same reason as above.
Additional Documents
If you want to include PDF's or DOCX's, etc, the best and most common methodology is just like images, to host on your server and simply include a static link in your email to them. It keeps file size down and you don't have to worry about what each and every email browser/reader is going to do.
Most of you probably know the following problem: You edit an HTML, view the result in your browser and happy with it.Then, you send it through different mail providers (AOL,YAHOO,GMAIL...), and discover that after going through their mail servers it may look
completely different (not to say worse) than you've expected it to. The view differs not only between what you see in your own browser before and after sending the HTML as an email, but between different email providers as well. A short "view source" will convince you that each email provider CHANGES (generically) the HTML.
My question:
A.I've heard there's an application allowing you to check how your html would look after going through each one of the US main email providers, so I can edit my html respectively. Can you tell me where I can find it?
B.Alternative ingenious solution? (less preferable..)
The only application I know which checks a lot of email providers is MailChimps' Inbox Inspector: http://www.mailchimp.com/features/power_features/inbox_inspector/. It sends screenshots of your email from several different inboxes. However, it's not free.
Alternatively, you can use appropriate HTML for emails, which will result in the same email in almost every inbox. Apprpriate HTML for emails are:
Use tables instead of divs
Use inline styles
Don't use background images
Do not float
A designer coded an html template using CSS best practices. I want to use this template as an email newsletter template, but I've heard people say hotmail, yahoo and gmail offer limited support for CSS.
Am I supposed to re-code these templates using table layouts and font tags?
The short answer is Yes.
You're going to get the best compatibility across webmail accounts & email clients by using the most basic and dumbed down HTML possible.
Don't use any CSS files or <style> tags. Do everything inline.
Handle positioning with nested tables that have explicit widths
I make heavy use of HTML comments in these situations to make sure I don't get confused about where I am in the layout.
All text should be surrounded by <font> tags with the font style information.
Images should have explicit widths & heights.
This helps the email retain its proper layout when images are blocked.
I usually test on a minimum of the following:
Outlook 2003
Outlook 2007
Most of your headaches will come from here.
Thunderbird
Entourage (OSX version of Outlook)
Gmail
Hotmail
Yahoo Mail
You're usually in pretty good shape if you get something that shows up properly on all of those.
We use Exact Target and they have an HTML preview feature but it's not perfect. I've run into a lot of situations where an email looked good in the preview but still came through broken in Outlook 2007.
Mark above said everything that you need to do to develop email templates (it's the 90's all over again), but I wanted to add one last thing:
http://www.email-standards.org/ is a great resource to see how different email clients interpret HTML and CSS.
To build on what Mark said:
If at all possible, avoid using CSS at all (though, it's usually alright for things like text). Use tables for all positioning, empty <td> elements for padding/smaller positioning bits.
And even with all this, it's only going to look perfect in a few email programs/sites. HTML email is, I'm fairly confident in saying, utterly impossible to do in such a way that it shows up perfectly in all mail clients/apps.
You'll have to go back to stone-age HTML to get HTML emails to work out as Mark suggested. All styles inline in the html. No STYLE tags or external stylesheets.
MailChimp and CampaignMonitor both offer excellent free HTML email templates. They also both offer email testing services that send your html emails to several different email clients and then send you screenshots of the results.
use div tag with fixed height/weigth and put all your HTML in there. It would look the same in most clients. Iv'e tried it before and it works fine.