# \[Pro\] Guidelines for html emails
**URL:** https://discourse.softpress.com/t/pro-guidelines-for-html-emails/8124
**Category:** Freeway
**Created:** [June 22, 2010, 12:12pm UTC](https://discourse.softpress.com/t/pro-guidelines-for-html-emails/8124 "2010-06-22T12:12:12Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@neil.west1](https://discourse.softpress.com/u/neil.west1)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2010, 12:12pm UTC](https://discourse.softpress.com/t/pro-guidelines-for-html-emails/8124/1 "2010-06-22T12:12:12Z")
I’m pretty new to html emails and I’m picking things up, but I appear to be using quite a (IMO) convoluted method of creating them. I will list below the route that I take, which does produce a finished email, but I would like to know if this method can be refined to make it any less arduous OR whether any of you far-more-experienced readers can create a set of guidelines/tutorial that would be of help to a lot of us.
1. doc setup: IE compatibility: normal. html 4.1 transitional
create using tables, no divs, no layers, no background images, 580px wide. When finished, apply ‘email ready html action’
2. upload to web server
3. check in browser for problems(I also use [emailonacid.com](http://emailonacid.com) testing)
It now starts getting arduous:
4. open the html file in Textwrangler and replace the pound signs/bullet points etc with html equivalents. Also replace the ‘locations’ of linked files with absolute references (i.e. the full web address of the files ON the web server)
5. copy the new html file onto the web server using an FTP client
6. import web-based html file into distribution software (I use Direct Mail) then send email to client for approval.
7. If the client makes changes, I then need to go back through steps 1 to 6 again. And again. And again.
Is this really the way everybody does it? I haven’t even touched on what I have to do with mailing lists/subscription lists/unsubscribe links etc.
Somebody please tell me there’s an easier way!
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### Author:  [@waltd](https://discourse.softpress.com/u/waltd)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2010, 12:30pm UTC](https://discourse.softpress.com/t/pro-guidelines-for-html-emails/8124/2 "2010-06-22T12:30:39Z")
Well you can eliminate step 4 (or make it less arduous) by changing your character encoding to Windows Latin 1 or similar using the Output tab of the Page Inspector. That should make all of the high-bit ASCII characters become their entity equivalents.
As to the rest, it’s pretty much the price you pay (that plus your immortal soul) for sending HTML in e-mail, which is, by definition, text.
Walter
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### Author:  [@BigG1](https://discourse.softpress.com/u/BigG1)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2010, 12:35pm UTC](https://discourse.softpress.com/t/pro-guidelines-for-html-emails/8124/3 "2010-06-22T12:35:39Z")
So Windows Latin 1 rather than Unicode 5.1 UTF-8?
Nathan Garner
Creative Director
Austin Wells Design Limited
One Elmgate Drive - Littledown - Bournemouth BH7 7EF
t 01202 301271 e email@hidden w [http://www.austinwellsdesign.co.uk](http://www.austinwellsdesign.co.uk)
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On 22 Jun 2010, at 13:30, waltd wrote:
> Well you can eliminate step 4 (or make it less arduous) by changing your character encoding to Windows Latin 1 or similar using the Output tab of the Page Inspector. That should make all of the high-bit ASCII characters become their entity equivalents.
>
> As to the rest, it’s pretty much the price you pay (that plus your immortal soul) for sending HTML in e-mail, which is, by definition, text.
>
> Walter
>
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>
> freewaytalk mailing list
> email@hidden
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> [http://freewaytalk.net/person/options](http://freewaytalk.net/person/options)
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### Author:  [@waltd](https://discourse.softpress.com/u/waltd)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2010, 12:40pm UTC](https://discourse.softpress.com/t/pro-guidelines-for-html-emails/8124/4 "2010-06-22T12:40:11Z")
Try that, I’m not guaranteeing that all of these characters will be
magically encoded, but most of them should be. You can test other
encoding options, and see which one works best for your content.
Walter
On Jun 22, 2010, at 8:35 AM, Nathan Garner wrote:
> So Windows Latin 1 rather than Unicode 5.1 UTF-8?
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### Author:  [@neil.west1](https://discourse.softpress.com/u/neil.west1)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2010, 2:19pm UTC](https://discourse.softpress.com/t/pro-guidelines-for-html-emails/8124/5 "2010-06-22T14:19:02Z")
> Well you can eliminate step 4 (or make it less arduous) by changing your character encoding to Windows Latin 1 or similar using the Output tab of the Page Inspector. That should make all of the high-bit ASCII characters become their entity equivalents.
Nope, that doesn’t make any difference when using the ‘email ready html’ action. Max has already told me that I need to edit the html text afterwards. The same thing applies to the absolute references. I tried using the ‘remote resources’ action but that doesn’t play nicely with the ‘email ready html’ action either!
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### Author:  [@Ginger\_Garnitz](https://discourse.softpress.com/u/Ginger_Garnitz)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2010, 6:15pm UTC](https://discourse.softpress.com/t/pro-guidelines-for-html-emails/8124/6 "2010-06-22T18:15:07Z")
For reliable quickly editable html email use the box model to build
your email templates. Dan Jasker has a great tutorial on the method
On Jun 22, 2010, at 5:12 AM, neil.west1 wrote:
> I’m pretty new to html emails and I’m picking things up, but I
> appear to be using quite a (IMO) convoluted method of creating
> them. I will list below the route that I take, which does produce a
> finished email, but I would like to know if this method can be
> refined to make it any less arduous OR whether any of you far-more-
> experienced readers can create a set of guidelines/tutorial that
> would be of help to a lot of us.
>
> 1. doc setup: IE compatibility: normal. html 4.1 transitional
> create using tables, no divs, no layers, no background images,
> 580px wide. When finished, apply ‘email ready html action’
>
> 2. upload to web server
>
> 3. check in browser for problems(I also use [emailonacid.com](http://emailonacid.com) testing)
> It now starts getting arduous:
>
> 4. open the html file in Textwrangler and replace the pound signs/
> bullet points etc with html equivalents. Also replace the
> ‘locations’ of linked files with absolute references (i.e. the full
> web address of the files ON the web server)
>
> 5. copy the new html file onto the web server using an FTP client
>
> 6. import web-based html file into distribution software (I use
> Direct Mail) then send email to client for approval.
>
> 7. If the client makes changes, I then need to go back through
> steps 1 to 6 again. And again. And again.
>
> Is this really the way everybody does it? I haven’t even touched on
> what I have to do with mailing lists/subscription lists/unsubscribe
> links etc.
>
> Somebody please tell me there’s an easier way!
>
> * * *
>
> freewaytalk mailing list
> email@hidden
> Update your subscriptions at:
> [http://freewaytalk.net/person/options](http://freewaytalk.net/person/options)
* * *
freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
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[http://freewaytalk.net/person/options](http://freewaytalk.net/person/options)
---
### Author:  [@neil.west1](https://discourse.softpress.com/u/neil.west1)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2010, 7:56am UTC](https://discourse.softpress.com/t/pro-guidelines-for-html-emails/8124/7 "2010-06-23T07:56:03Z")
> For reliable quickly editable html email use the box model to build
> your email templates. Dan Jasker has a great tutorial on the method
Thanks for that Ginjg, but I don’t have a problem creating the email itself, it’s the processes I need to go through AFTER creating it. Besides, I thought the box model was CSS and I’ve read that you need to create them using tables - or am I getting mixed up?!
Neil
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### Author:  [@Ginger\_Garnitz](https://discourse.softpress.com/u/Ginger_Garnitz)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2010, 6:15pm UTC](https://discourse.softpress.com/t/pro-guidelines-for-html-emails/8124/8 "2010-06-23T18:15:07Z")
Perhaps it’s considered “inline css”. For me, I found it works
better than tables in the two mailing programs I use (Acymailing and
ListMessenger for Joomla) for consistency across all browsers and
mail clients. I couldn’t get tables to behave the way I wanted. It
also was effective when I used to import custom layouts into Constant
Contact.
I design to the least standards compliant email client, which,
according to [email-standards.org](http://email-standards.org), is gmail.
After the email is in the mail program, I send it to check-
email@hidden for spam check. You can get more info
about that at port24http://www.port25.com/corporate/
corp\_news\_authenticator.html
I didn’t know there was an ‘email ready html action’ I’ll have to
give that a try.
On Jun 23, 2010, at 12:56 AM, neil.west1 wrote:
> > For reliable quickly editable html email use the box model to build
> > your email templates. Dan Jasker has a great tutorial on the method
>
> Thanks for that Ginjg, but I don’t have a problem creating the
> email itself, it’s the processes I need to go through AFTER
> creating it. Besides, I thought the box model was CSS and I’ve read
> that you need to create them using tables - or am I getting mixed up?!
>
> Neil
>
> * * *
>
> freewaytalk mailing list
> email@hidden
> Update your subscriptions at:
> [http://freewaytalk.net/person/options](http://freewaytalk.net/person/options)
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