[Pro] HTML email export in mail chimp!

Emily · July 6, 2011, 8:17am

Hi,
I am have created an html in freeway pro and have uploaded it using file copy. I have gone into mail chimp and tried to upload it as a html templete.
However when I import the html page it just imports the page and not the resources or css, so I just come up with a blank page?!!
What do I do??

HELP!!!

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TIm_Plumb1 · July 6, 2011, 8:53am

Hi Emily,
You can do one of two things;

If you have Freeway 5.5 you can apply the Create Email Action to the page. This will massage the HTML into a format that should work well with most mail clients as well as repoint your resources to a remote location. You can find out a little more about the Action here: http://www.softpress.com/tour/new-in-freeway-55/
You can use the free Remote Resources Action (http://www.freewayactions.com/product.php?id=013) to rewrite the paths for the CSS and images to a absolute (rather than relative) location.

I hope this helps.
Regards,
Tim.

On 6 Jul 2011, at 09:17, Emily wrote:

I am have created an html in freeway pro and have uploaded it using file copy. I have gone into mail chimp and tried to upload it as a html templete.
However when I import the html page it just imports the page and not the resources or css, so I just come up with a blank page?!!
What do I do??

HELP!!!

Tim Plumb
Creative Director
Softpress Systems

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Emily · July 6, 2011, 9:26am

Thanks

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Dan_J1 · July 6, 2011, 1:18pm

Number 2 in Tim’s response is only necessary if you don’t have FW 5.5 as the HTML Email action already adds in the full absolute URL to any images and what not when you add a URL into the “Web Address” field under “Upload” in the “Document Setup”.

So, just wanted to say that to prevent overkill or double usage.

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TIm_Plumb1 · July 6, 2011, 2:18pm

Yes, absolutely. Thanks for the clarification Dan. The Create Email action contains the same functionality as the Remote Resources Action for altering the resource paths plus a whole load of email specific features.
Regards,
Tim.

On 6 Jul 2011, at 14:18, Dan J wrote:

So, just wanted to say that to prevent overkill or double usage.

Tim Plumb
Creative Director
Softpress Systems

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DM1 · July 6, 2011, 3:01pm

Will this also help with email in Outlook?

I have created an email and am copying the HTML into UltraCart for use in Auto Responders - email looks great in everything except Outlook 2007 on the PC - Outlook 2011 on Mac is fine…

Thanks

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DM1 · July 6, 2011, 3:04pm

Also, what is the easiest way to then get the HTML… currently I open in Firefox and use Firebug…

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waltd · July 6, 2011, 4:18pm

If you have a programmer’s text editor, like the free and fabulous
TextWrangler from http://barebones.com then you can tell Freeway that
it is a browser. Pull down File / Preview in Browser / Browser Setup
and add TextWrangler (or BBEdit, TextMate, gedit, anything happen to
have that isn’t Word or another “styled text” editor) as a new
“browser”.

Now, all you need to do is pull down File / Preview in Browser / [your
text editor name here] and you’ll have the source, with line-numbers
and syntax highlighting, and all the other bells and whistles that
make people pay more than $100 to edit plain text files.

Walter

On Jul 6, 2011, at 11:04 AM, DM wrote:

Also, what is the easiest way to then get the HTML… currently I
open in Firefox and use Firebug…

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Dan_J1 · July 6, 2011, 5:26pm

If you’re using MailChimp though, then all you have to do is just navigate to “My Templates” and then in the sidebar choose “Import to my templates” and then from there just choose the HTML file from your Site Folder and then choose OK. It will then upload that template to your templates area and then you’re good on getting it into MailChimp to work with the editor there.

Make sure also that you have uploaded the images and Resources elsewhere or nothing will load up as MailChimp does not store images or anything.

This method prevents using an extra program when you can just upload the HTML file right into MailChimp.

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Jonathan_Riddle · October 11, 2012, 3:13pm

Hi all,

I know this is an old thread, but I have been using Mailchimp for a good while now, and the simple templates provided by Mailchimp have been sufficient.

However, I made a bit of a boo-boo recently and discovered that there is simply no way of rectifying errors once the campaign has been sent.

However, if I were to use Freeway to generate the html to import into Mailchimp (as described above), which would pull in the Resources from an uploaded folder, in theory, if I were to change an image and somebody re-visited the email at any stage, the amended image would be pulled in - is that correct?

I know there is nothing I can do about html text content, but hopefully I can do something about images?

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waltd · October 11, 2012, 3:17pm

On Oct 11, 2012, at 11:13 AM, Jonathan Riddle wrote:

However, if I were to use Freeway to generate the html to import into Mailchimp (as described above), which would pull in the Resources from an uploaded folder, in theory, if I were to change an image and somebody re-visited the email at any stage, the amended image would be pulled in - is that correct?

If the mail template used full http URLs to the image files, then whatever you post at those URLs would appear when the mail was first opened. Not sure if these remote files are cached with the message, or downloaded fresh every time – that’s an implementation detail that’s likely to differ by mail reader – but you would be able to nip errors in the bud. Note that you have to match the image dimensions exactly with your replacements – no going back on the HTML that places or sizes them on the page.

Walter

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Jonathan_Riddle · October 11, 2012, 3:49pm

Hi Walter,

I have a sneaky they are loaded each time because in testing in the past, once I rename or move a folder which contains referenced images, the dreaded ? icon has appeared for a missing image. However, as you say, that could vary in different email apps.

Will give it some testing.

Thanks

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