Designing an Email template

With the Designer you can design Email templates. It is strongly recommended to start creating an Email template with an Email Template Wizard, because it is challenging to design HTML email that looks good on all email clients, devices and screen sizes that customers use when they are reading their email.

This topic explains why designing HTML email design is as challenging as it is, which solutions are used in the Email Template Wizards and it lists good practices, for example regarding the use of images in HTML email. It will help you to create the best possible Email templates in the Designer.

HTML email challenges

Creating HTML email isn't like designing for the Web. That's because email clients aren't like web browsers. Email clients pass HTML email through a preprocessor to remove anything that could be dangerous, introduce privacy concerns or cause the email client to behave unexpectedly. This includes removing javascript, object and embed tags, and unrecognized tags. Most preprocessors are overly restrictive and remove anything with the slightest potential to affect the layout of their email client. Next, the HTML has to be rendered so that it is safe to show within the email client. Unfortunately, desktop, webmail, and mobile clients all use different rendering engines, which support different subsets of HTML and CSS. More often than not, the result of these operations is that they completely break the HTML email's layout.

Designing HTML email in PReSDesigner

The problem of HTML email is that preprocessing and rendering engines break the HTML email's layout. HTML tables, however, are mostly left untroubled. As they are supported by every major email client, they are pretty much the only way to design HTML emails that are universally supported. That's why Tables are heavily used to position text and images in HTML email.

Nesting tables (putting tables in table cells) and applying CSS styles to each table cell to make the email look good on all screen sizes is a precision work that can be a tedious and demanding. Connect's Designer offers the following tools to make designing HTML email easier.

Email templates: Slate and others

The most obvious solution offered in the Designer is to use one of the templates provided with the Designer; see Creating an Email template with a Wizard. The layout of these templates has been tested and proven to look good in any email client, on any device and screen size. The Tables in these templates are nested (put inside another table) and they have no visible borders, so readers won't notice them.

Click the Edges button on the toolbar to make borders of elements visible on the Design tab. The borders will not be visible on the Preview tab or in the output.

Emmet

Emmet is a plugin that enables the lightning-fast creation of HTML code though the use of a simple and effective shortcut language. The Emmet functionality is available in the HTML and CSS source editors of Connect Designer. Emmet transforms abbreviations for HTML elements and CSS properties to the respective source code. The expansion of abbreviations is invoked with the Tab key.

In the Source tab of the Workspace, you could for example type div.row. This is the abbreviation for a <div> element with the class row. On pressing the Tab key, this abbreviation is transformed to:

To quickly enter a table with the ID 'green', one row, and two cells in that row, type:

All standard abbreviations can be found in Emmet's documentation: Abbreviations.

Preferences

To change the way Emmet works in the Designer, select Window > Preferences, and in the Preferences dialog, select Emmet; see Emmet Preferences.

Using CSS files with HTML email

Email clients do not read CSS files and some even remove a <style> tag when it is present in the email's header. Nevertheless, CSS files can be used with the Email context in the Designer. When generating output from the Email context, the Designer converts all CSS rules that apply to the content of the email to inline style tags, as if local formatting was applied.

Using images in email campaigns: tips

Host images on a public server

In the Designer you can add images as resource to the template document. When used in email messages these images are automatically embedded on sending the email. These embedded images appear instantly when viewing the message in your email client.
There is, however, a downside to this method: embedded images can't be used to track email open rates. Email services like mandrillapp.com embed a tiny tracer image at the bottom of your message. Each time a recipient opens the email the tracer image (aka beacon image) is downloaded and yet another 'open' is registered. On mobile devices this happens when the user clicks the Display Images button.
So, when tracking open rates in your email campaigns, store your images on a publicly-accessible server (preferably your own server - you could set up a process in Workflow to serve images and track open rates) or a reputable image hosting service, like photobucket.com. Don't forget to set the Alternate Text for your images on the Attributes pane.

Do not capture your email in one big image

Most e-mail clients do not automatically download images, so do not capture your email in one big image. The recipient initially sees a blank message and probably deletes it right away.

Do not resize images in your email

Many mail clients do not support image resizing and will show the image in its original dimensions. Resize the images before you link to or embed them.

Use background images wisely

Most mail clients do not support background images: a very good reason to stay away from them in your mainstream email campaign. There is one situation in which they do come in handy. Both iPhone and Android default mail have solid CSS support and cover most of the mobile marketspace. You could use background images to substitute images when viewed on these devices. This is done by hiding the actual image and showing a mobile-friendly image as background image instead. This is a technique used in Responsive Email Design.