 |
|
|
|
Next: Ipowerweb complete down again
|
| Author |
Message |
External
Since: Jun 14, 2007
Posts: 7
|
(Msg. 1) Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2007 2:13 pm
Post subject: Good formatting of html e-mails
Archived from groups: alt>www>webmaster (more info?)
|
|
|
Hi,
I work at his company and we send a monthly newsletter in html format,
but my boss told me a lot of people people aren't able to read it
correctly. So showed me what it looks like on her mail client (apple
mail for Tiger) and the formatting is really ugly and text cluterred
(pictures aren't displayed if I remember well).
Now, I'm trying to fix that. The newsletter is built with a
Dreamweaver template (.dwt), and don't know about his stuff because
I'm not very a WYSIWYG type of guy, but I looked at it and it was a
regular html page, so I changed the extension to html and sent it to
see what it looks like in a couple of mail clients I have access to
(Thunderbird 1.5, Evolution, Gmail, RoundCube, SquirrelMail) but
everything look fine on those. Even when the images aren't displayed
by the client, the layout stays fine and readable.
Now, maybe it's my boss' mail client (for which I don't have access
right now) or I did something they don't do correctly when they send
it, but I can't seem to reproduce the problem (I sent it with my Linux
box on evolution using the add HTML file).
The page is in html 4.01 transitional with a correct Doctype and the
only thing I could see making the problem is the table design of the
page. I'm I better of creating a table less design with the page with
CSS? If so, can anyone point to me a good resource on the Web to
switch a table design to a table less one?
Thanks in advance! |
|
| Back to top |
|
 | |
External
Since: Sep 14, 2005
Posts: 83
|
(Msg. 2) Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2007 2:49 pm
Post subject: Re: Good formatting of html e-mails [Login to view extended thread Info.]
Archived from groups: per prev. post (more info?)
|
|
|
sebzzz RemoveThis @gmail.com wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I work at his company and we send a monthly newsletter in html format,
> but my boss told me a lot of people people aren't able to read it
> correctly. So showed me what it looks like on her mail client (apple
> mail for Tiger) and the formatting is really ugly and text cluterred
> (pictures aren't displayed if I remember well).
>
> Now, I'm trying to fix that. The newsletter is built with a
> Dreamweaver template (.dwt), and don't know about his stuff because
> I'm not very a WYSIWYG type of guy, but I looked at it and it was a
> regular html page, so I changed the extension to html and sent it to
> see what it looks like in a couple of mail clients I have access to
> (Thunderbird 1.5, Evolution, Gmail, RoundCube, SquirrelMail) but
> everything look fine on those. Even when the images aren't displayed
> by the client, the layout stays fine and readable.
>
> Now, maybe it's my boss' mail client (for which I don't have access
> right now) or I did something they don't do correctly when they send
> it, but I can't seem to reproduce the problem (I sent it with my Linux
> box on evolution using the add HTML file).
>
> The page is in html 4.01 transitional with a correct Doctype and the
> only thing I could see making the problem is the table design of the
> page. I'm I better of creating a table less design with the page with
> CSS? If so, can anyone point to me a good resource on the Web to
> switch a table design to a table less one?
>
> Thanks in advance!
The only reliable solution is to forget about html emails in my opinion.
HTML was never meant for emails. It's a bodged solution at best, which will
never work the same on all clients. |
|
| Back to top |
|
| |
External
Since: Oct 21, 2005
Posts: 32
|
(Msg. 3) Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2007 4:22 pm
Post subject: Re: Good formatting of html e-mails [Login to view extended thread Info.]
Archived from groups: per prev. post (more info?)
|
|
|
sebzzz DeleteThis @gmail.com wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I work at his company and we send a monthly newsletter in html
> format,
> but my boss told me a lot of people people aren't able to read it
> correctly. So showed me what it looks like on her mail client (apple
> mail for Tiger) and the formatting is really ugly and text cluterred
> (pictures aren't displayed if I remember well).
We solved that problem by sending the newsletter as a pdf attachment.
Tom J >> Stay informed about: Good formatting of html e-mails |
|
| Back to top |
|
| |
External
Since: Jun 14, 2007
Posts: 5
|
(Msg. 4) Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2007 7:58 pm
Post subject: Re: Good formatting of html e-mails [Login to view extended thread Info.]
Archived from groups: per prev. post (more info?)
|
|
|
sebzzz wrote:
> I work at his company and we send a monthly newsletter in html format,
> but my boss told me a lot of people people aren't able to read it
> correctly.
Use quirks mode; validate against HTML 4.01 strict though; inline all your
styles into style attributes, don't use <body style="..."> though; don't
put anything into <head> except the title.
--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
[Geek of HTML/SQL/Perl/PHP/Python/Apache/Linux]
[OS: Linux 2.6.12-12mdksmp, up 111 days, 2:35.]
HenPlus
http://tobyinkster.co.uk/blog/2007/06/14/henplus/ >> Stay informed about: Good formatting of html e-mails |
|
| Back to top |
|
| |
External
Since: Jan 01, 2004
Posts: 187
|
(Msg. 5) Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2007 10:43 pm
Post subject: Re: Good formatting of html e-mails [Login to view extended thread Info.]
Archived from groups: per prev. post (more info?)
|
|
|
On Thu, 14 Jun 2007 14:13:15 -0000, sebzzz RemoveThis @gmail.com wrote:
>So showed me what it looks like on her mail client (apple
>mail for Tiger) and the formatting is really ugly and text cluterred
>(pictures aren't displayed if I remember well).
How is the layout done? With 1x1 pixel transparent gifs, sized on the
client, so as to set table cell sizes? If so, then anything that kills
images also kills the layout!
If you post a URL to a sample, we might be able to give you a better
idea though.
>The page is in html 4.01 transitional with a correct Doctype
Obviously switch it to Strict as well.
>I'm I better of creating a table less design with the page with
>CSS? If so, can anyone point to me a good resource on the Web to
>switch a table design to a table less one?
Same old same old. Read here, alt.html, c.i.w.a.h and search recent
archives, as there have been a number of HTML email threads lately.
The usual suspects for the blogs will give you advice on "fluid design",
because that's a good idea for the web and it's even _more_ important
for email authoring, where you have to be useful in a far wider range of
browser window sizes.
Apart from that, cut the HTML down to the bare minimum of sensibel
semantic HTML, then look at sticking some CSS onto it to make it look
good. Start with the minimum and build up though, don't try to trim it
gradually downwards, cell by cell. >> Stay informed about: Good formatting of html e-mails |
|
| Back to top |
|
| |
External
Since: Jun 05, 2007
Posts: 87
|
(Msg. 6) Posted: Fri Jun 15, 2007 2:48 am
Post subject: Re: Good formatting of html e-mails [Login to view extended thread Info.]
Archived from groups: per prev. post (more info?)
|
|
|
On 15 Jun, 04:09, seb....TakeThisOut@gmail.com wrote:
> You can see the newsletter here :http://caslt.org/newsletter/caslt_esl.html
>
> And the Dreamweaver template is located here :http://caslt.org/newsletter/Templates/caslt_esl.dwt
>
> Hope that helps to find what's wrong
<td colspan="2">
<img src="http://caslt.org/newsletter/images/spacer.gif" alt=""
width="1" height="10" border="0"><br>
</td>
Bingo! Just as I said.
That HTML email is 10+ year old web design with its tables and spacer
gifs. It's not good practice for the web and it's very bad practice
for HTML in emails. It needs fixing with a good fluid design. Lose the
stretchy gifs, lose the tables.
I'd also consider losing the two column section at the start, in
favour of a single column one after the other. HTML email has to work
in pretty narrow windows sometimes and although you can do this two-
column business technically, it's going to be difficult to use. >> Stay informed about: Good formatting of html e-mails |
|
| Back to top |
|
| |
External
Since: Jun 14, 2007
Posts: 7
|
(Msg. 7) Posted: Fri Jun 15, 2007 3:09 am
Post subject: Re: Good formatting of html e-mails [Login to view extended thread Info.]
Archived from groups: per prev. post (more info?)
|
|
|
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| |
External
Since: Jun 05, 2007
Posts: 87
|
(Msg. 8) Posted: Fri Jun 15, 2007 7:37 am
Post subject: Re: Good formatting of html e-mails [Login to view extended thread Info.]
Archived from groups: per prev. post (more info?)
|
|
|
On 15 Jun, 15:22, Bergamot <berga....TakeThisOut@visi.com> wrote:
> One thing to consider, however, is that a fair number of email clients
{{cite}}
Come on, name names.
> (including web mail systems) have not kept pace with browsers regarding
> standards and CSS support.
> (including web mail systems)
Think about that for a minute.
> Table layouts, including HTML presentational
> attributes, are not such a bad thing here.
Bollocks.
Do you really claim that "HTML by email" means dropping back a decade
to the days of NS4? >> Stay informed about: Good formatting of html e-mails |
|
| Back to top |
|
| |
External
Since: Jun 05, 2007
Posts: 87
|
(Msg. 9) Posted: Fri Jun 15, 2007 7:51 am
Post subject: Re: Good formatting of html e-mails [Login to view extended thread Info.]
Archived from groups: per prev. post (more info?)
|
|
|
On 15 Jun, 15:22, Bergamot <berga... RemoveThis @visi.com> wrote:
> One thing to consider, however, is that a fair number of email clients
> (including web mail systems) have not kept pace with browsers regarding
> standards and CSS support.
This much is literally true in that they haven't "kept pace", but
that's still no reason why you can't deliver CSS to HTML email clients
and have it work right.
The canonical article on this was from ALA (no surprise) and is now
several years old.
http://alistapart.com/articles/cssemail
Even back then, there are some obvious conclusions:
* The big problem with CSS is in the wrapper, i.e. <body> and outside
of it. Styles applied to <body> can get lost, stylesheets can be lost
too.
* At an element level, CSS works comparably well for email clients as
it does for web browsers. It was comparable then, it's comparable now.
Of course in 2004 neither of them were particularly good.
So if you design with CSS as per normal, you wrap your overall message
up in a styled <div> and you expand your stylesheets into style
attributes rather than stylesheets, then you'll be pretty well
armoured against teh wrost they can do to you. All you're really
likely to lose is link highlighting with :hover. That's abused more
than it's usefully used and you can inline a tiny stylesheet into the
<body> of the message to cover it in most cases (this is itself and
invalid and at risk of getting suppressed, so don't use it for
anything other than the link tweakery)
It's not really that much different to coding CSS for any embedded
context, be that eBay or RSS. >> Stay informed about: Good formatting of html e-mails |
|
| Back to top |
|
| |
External
Since: Jun 05, 2007
Posts: 87
|
(Msg. 10) Posted: Fri Jun 15, 2007 9:16 am
Post subject: Re: Good formatting of html e-mails [Login to view extended thread Info.]
Archived from groups: per prev. post (more info?)
|
|
|
On 15 Jun, 16:41, Bergamot <berga... RemoveThis @visi.com> wrote:
> Things aren't necessarily improving.
No, but they're still not as bad as you portray them.
The Office HTML renderer is a ghastly mess. Even with that though,
there are very few CSS features missing from it that really ought to
be in use in a HTML email that's being sent out with the intention of
widespread readership.
The only one I really miss is float, because that's crucial to
producing two-column layouts. If you do that with a table instead, you
take too much of a hammering from small windows with big fonts. I
still use float for multi-column layouts though (sorry GMail), because
its fallback position is better than that for excessively wide tables
(and I really do care a lot about mobile devices). >> Stay informed about: Good formatting of html e-mails |
|
| Back to top |
|
| |
External
Since: Oct 17, 2006
Posts: 65
|
(Msg. 11) Posted: Fri Jun 15, 2007 9:22 am
Post subject: Re: Good formatting of html e-mails [Login to view extended thread Info.]
Archived from groups: per prev. post (more info?)
|
|
|
Andy Dingley wrote:
> On 15 Jun, 04:09, seb....RemoveThis@gmail.com wrote:
>> You can see the newsletter here :http://caslt.org/newsletter/caslt_esl.html
>
> That HTML email is 10+ year old web design with its tables and spacer
> gifs. It's not good practice for the web and it's very bad practice
> for HTML in emails. It needs fixing with a good fluid design. Lose the
> stretchy gifs, lose the tables.
One thing to consider, however, is that a fair number of email clients
(including web mail systems) have not kept pace with browsers regarding
standards and CSS support. Table layouts, including HTML presentational
attributes, are not such a bad thing here.
--
Berg >> Stay informed about: Good formatting of html e-mails |
|
| Back to top |
|
| |
External
Since: Oct 17, 2006
Posts: 65
|
(Msg. 12) Posted: Fri Jun 15, 2007 9:53 am
Post subject: Re: Good formatting of html e-mails [Login to view extended thread Info.]
Archived from groups: per prev. post (more info?)
|
|
|
Andy Dingley wrote:
> On 15 Jun, 15:22, Bergamot <berga... RemoveThis @visi.com> wrote:
>
>> One thing to consider, however, is that a fair number of email clients
>> (including web mail systems) have not kept pace with browsers regarding
>> standards and CSS support.
>
>> (including web mail systems)
>
> Think about that for a minute.
I have, or I wouldn't have said it. I've had screen shots of comcast web
mail sent to me that were not very pretty. CSS layouts fared poorly
against table layouts.
> Do you really claim that "HTML by email" means dropping back a decade
> to the days of NS4?
I'm saying that HTML email is a lot more limited than a regular web
page. What works on the web doesn't necessarily work (or as well) in
HTML email.
--
Berg >> Stay informed about: Good formatting of html e-mails |
|
| Back to top |
|
| |
External
Since: Oct 17, 2006
Posts: 65
|
(Msg. 13) Posted: Fri Jun 15, 2007 10:41 am
Post subject: Re: Good formatting of html e-mails [Login to view extended thread Info.]
Archived from groups: per prev. post (more info?)
|
|
|
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| |
External
Since: Oct 17, 2006
Posts: 65
|
(Msg. 14) Posted: Fri Jun 15, 2007 12:55 pm
Post subject: Re: Good formatting of html e-mails [Login to view extended thread Info.]
Archived from groups: per prev. post (more info?)
|
|
|
Blinky the Shark wrote:
> Bergamot wrote:
>>
>> I'm saying that HTML email is a lot more limited than a regular web
>> page.
>
> Here, HTML mail is limited to going into my spam folder.
Most of the people I correspond with regularly use HTML email, so I
can't just reject it all. Fortunately, my email client lets me view all
messages as plain text only so I don't have to go blind or insane from
looking at silly stationery or purple Comic Sans fonts.
--
Berg >> Stay informed about: Good formatting of html e-mails |
|
| Back to top |
|
| |
External
Since: Jul 02, 2003
Posts: 692
|
(Msg. 15) Posted: Fri Jun 15, 2007 5:04 pm
Post subject: Re: Good formatting of html e-mails [Login to view extended thread Info.]
Archived from groups: per prev. post (more info?)
|
|
|
Bergamot wrote:
> Andy Dingley wrote:
>> On 15 Jun, 15:22, Bergamot <berga....TakeThisOut@visi.com> wrote:
>>
>>> One thing to consider, however, is that a fair number of email clients
>>> (including web mail systems) have not kept pace with browsers regarding
>>> standards and CSS support.
>>
>>> (including web mail systems)
>>
>> Think about that for a minute.
>
> I have, or I wouldn't have said it. I've had screen shots of comcast web
> mail sent to me that were not very pretty. CSS layouts fared poorly
> against table layouts.
>
>> Do you really claim that "HTML by email" means dropping back a decade
>> to the days of NS4?
>
> I'm saying that HTML email is a lot more limited than a regular web
> page. What works on the web doesn't necessarily work (or as well) in
> HTML email.
Here, HTML mail is limited to going into my spam folder.
--
Blinky RLU 297263
Killing all posts from Google Groups
The Usenet Improvement Project: http://blinkynet.net/comp/uip5.html >> Stay informed about: Good formatting of html e-mails |
|
| Back to top |
|
| |
|
You can post new topics in this forum
You can reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
FAQ
Profile
Private Messages
Log in
