Creating HTML email

any in-depth step-by-step resources with pictures?

[Louise Sanders]

Hi

I am trying to create an html newsletter in Dreamweaver. Hard Work! I have read so many articles but so many take for granted that you know exactly what to do and they don't give enough detail, especially with the uploading of the images, absolute paths and relative paths and then sending. I am using Mail List King to manage databases and send the emails via Outlook. When i send the test to myself, the images don't even look like they are downloading from the server, they are immediately there. With all other HTML newsletters I receive from people, Outlook writes a nice message saying "right click on image to download"as Outlook prevents images from coming up. This doesnt happen with my test HTML message so I know Im doing something wrong.

Anyone got any suggestions for in-depth resources? Im frustrated and pulling my hair out!

Thanks
Louise

[BlobFisk]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld, Lousie_Sanders!

You could checkout the great post by Don_Hoagie in Msg #7 in this thread:

[webmasterworld.com ]

[Louise Sanders]

Thanks, I have read that post but it is still not very helpful and in-depth.

Thanks

Louise

[collymellon]

Last time I had this tsak to do I used MS word to create the HTML and flatten the email (to put it) before doing a mail merge and sending it through word itself - this worked well (allthough its impossible to determine the kind of security level users ISP have)

[Don_Hoagie]

Hi Louise,

As stated in my post(aforementioned by BlobFisk-thanks for the plug!), you should not relatively link images. In HTML emails, your code becomes property of the email application that opens it up, which of course confuses the path of a relatively linked image. I'm not sure what your email settings are or how this Mail List King setup works, but perhaps the reason you can view your test images instantly is because of the relative linking... if you're linking this way, then I suppose the email could be calling the images from your hard drive, which may also explain why you're not being prompted by Outlook's security measure, because at that point it would not be downloading anything from an outside server. At any rate, go with absolute linking.

Are you sending these emails to a controlled group? Meaning, do you know for a fact that all recipients are going to view the mail in Microsoft Outlook?

Though I can understand how my post can sound daunting to people who don't hand-code, it is meant to be so. Simply put, it is my experience that mass emails in HTML/CSS need to be tweaked by hand in order to get through to the bulk of America's inboxes. If you really feel it's necessary to go beyond plaintext, I would advise that you look at the nuts and bolts of your code... if that's not your bag, then I can only suggest you keep it as simple as possible: no styled links, no tables... just a few images and paragraphs and basic blue underlined links. If you need anything else, I'd be happy to take a look at your code... you can sticky me that if you like.