Ask Dr. LJ

[rhu]

Having gotten no criticism, constructive or otherwise :-), on my proposed email message, I'm ready to send it.... but for one detail. It uses handcrafted HTML, and I don't have a client installed that lets me send handcrafted HTML messages. (Normally, I avoid sending formatted email like the plague, but let's face it, this message is a kind of advertisement and I want it to look slicker than plain text.) Anyone out there have a suggestion?

Thanks!

Comments

Thunderbird?

[jikamens.livejournal.com]

Thunderbird will let you Insert > HTML..., and if you tell it to send the message in both HTML and plaintext format (which is the default, I believe, when it doesn't know the addressee's preferred format), it will automatically convert the HTML into plaintext to generate a multipart/alternative message. Its HTML to plaintext conversion is among the best I've seen.

Alternatively, you can view your HTML in a browser and cut and paste it into a Thunderbird message window (most other modern email clients let you do that as well, no?).

Finally, you could cobble together a multipart/alternative MIME message by hand pretty easily.

Re: Thunderbird?

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

I used tbird, in the end. It was frustrating and didn't come out the way I wanted, but it sufficed. Thanks for the suggestion.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Was critique necessary if the letter looked okay?

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

Nope. Thus the smiley.

[lucretia-borgia.livejournal.com]

Sorry, no suggestion; and I missed whenever you put out the original request for criticism. What you have looks terrific, alas. :->

CSS Email Support

[drdaly.livejournal.com]

You'll want to make sure you take into account which email platforms (both stand alone aps and web-based) support the CSS style elements and properties you wish to use in your HTML. Here's a good summary page:

http://www.campaignmonitor.com/css/

Cutting-and-pasting code directly in to an email composition window is fraught with peril, as some email apps will "helpfully" filter pasted code.

Thunderbird also has a nasty habit of embedding linked images before sending out the message.

When I send HTML messages to my clients, I use a PHP script founded on PHPMailer (http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpmailer/). I make sure to include a text-only version of the message, as many mail servers will junk HTML-only messages.

You'll also want to avoid sending out too many messages to a single mail server at one time. Perform a random sort on your distribution list, break it into batches of 19 or fewer, and time them to go out only every five minutes or so.

This all may sound extreme, but trust me; I design HTML-based newsletters for about 1,000 clients each month, and I hear about it when they have distribution problems. I used to do their distribution for them, until I discovered how easy it is to be blacklisted, and how much effort it takes to undo the easy-to-do damage. Now I recommend to my clients that they use iContact or Constant Contact, or some such company that has people dedicated to ensuring delivery and maintaining good relations with the big ISPs. That's what I do for my regular announcements. (I don't know if you plan regular mailings; if you do let me know.)

Hope this helps.

Re: CSS Email Support

[jikamens.livejournal.com]

I have an "uncss" tool which reads an embedded style sheet and adds the styles in it to the individual HTML elements within the file, so that the styles will work on mail clients (e.g., gmail) that ignore style sheets.

Let me know if you're interested.

Re: CSS Email Support

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the useful info. In this case, it was a single message to a single email list, so I wasn't worried about being tagged as a spammer.

And I actually was pleased that Thunderbird took the initiative of attaching the images; the whole reason I was using HTML instead of plain text was I wanted it to have that additional polished look of a header and matched background, and since most readers these days suppress URL-based images for fear that they're tracking "bugs", having the images attached improved the odds that the recipient would see what I intended.

For the moment, my regular mailings are plain text and going to about a dozen subscribers. I usually abjure HTML email, but in this case I really wanted to catch peoples' eyes. (Not that it worked, alas.)

Thanks again for the helpful information!