HTML newsletter. How to on the Mac?

[derekryan]

My company wants to send a monthly newsletter (with pictures and formatted text) to some of our clients and I was assign to do that. I am a Mac systems manager in graphic industry and don't know much about html. One thing I know is that Apple Mail doesn't support sending html mails and I would have to use entourage or some bulk email program as I don't want to type 50 email addresses each month. My questions are:
1) Can I generate html messages in Dreamweaver that I plan to buy?
2) What email program I cna use to send this mail out?
3) Is there any specific way of sending html I need to be aware of?
I downloaded trial of dreamweaver and made a sample newslatter but I cannot send this even with entourage to show what I've done. The only thing I see is html source code.

[benihana]

1) Can I generate html messages in Dreamweaver that I plan to buy?

yes you can. you have to make sure that any graphics referenced use abosulte URLS; i.e. starting with http://

2) What email program I cna use to send this mail out?

lots of choice here. do you have access to a webserver? does that server have any bulk mailers pre-installed? if not, is it possible to for you or someone there to install some for you? alternatively, there are many companies that wil allow you to use there list manaagment tools for a small fee- some with free trials also.

3) Is there any specific way of sending html I need to be aware of?

keep the html simple. - use tables not css for layout. (never thought id say that). use a maximum width of 600px. Make sure you the program you use can handle multi part mime emails, so you can send both a text and html file at the same time, and the recipients software chooses how to display it.

[Musicarl]

We use Filemaker to send out our html newsletter. If you have the info in a database, you can use a CNS (http://www.cornetser.com/) plug in to put the recipient's name in the letter along with the body of text.

Interesting question about special considerations when sending html. I'm wondering that as well.

[dcrombie]

Someone posted this article [google.com] in another forum. Be sure to read the 10-page 'Discussion' as well ;)

[jamesa]

Mozilla's mail (and maybe now Thunderbird) is the best free solution I found when I last looked some time ago.

[microcars]

you need to send HTML mail because it has to be pictures and text formatted, or you need to send it that way because the clients "interact" with the email?

many people have HTML email dis-abled thanks to spammers using little tracking GIFs in their HTML emails.

If they are just "reading" the newsletter, why not just send it out as a PDF document?

You can make links clickable and its not HTML mail.

[derekryan]

I want to use html format because I want for my newsletter to display within a email client without downloading it manually (ex. clicking download and saving somewhere and than finding it and double-clicking to open. I am not sure if PDF's show in some email clients as html does. HTML mail previews even within Apple Mail client.

[DerekH]

Having looked at the Apple Website and the announcement of Tiger (MacOsX 10.4), it seems that the easy way to generate HTML mails in AppleMail is to buy Tiger...
DerekH

[jamesa]

Hmm, I wonder if you can paste in your own HTML code in Mail v2. I guess we'll find out in 16 days. Tiger, baby. Woohoo :)

[derekryan]

Thank you for all the responses. I did simple html page (pictures and type in tables - no css). I was able to recreate in Dreamweaver a supplied indesign layout and was successful sending it from Outlook express (on windows). It looks good. The problem I have is that I don't know how to send it from a Mac. There is no "insert html file" command in Thunderbird or in Entourage. I know Apple Mail 1.x does not support html sending and I didn't bother. How do you send it from any Mac email client?

[jamesa]

>> "insert html file" command

Mozilla's mail program has it

[Musicarl]

Since we're on the subject, how do you think we should format our newsletter if we need lots of clickable links within the letter, but no other HTML? If we want links, do we need to send the whole thing in HTML?

[microcars]

if you just want links that are clickable, you could just send regular plain text emails with full URLs in place.

whatever email client they are using should make the links "clickable" even if they have "html" email functionality turned OFF.

but they have to be full URLs like:
[example.com...]
and not:
<a href="http://www.example.com/files/lookhere.html">Click Here for more info!</a>

you might want to wrap all URLs in chicken beaks too so if they are long and get "wrapped" they won't break up:
<[example.com ]>

[jamesa]

Chicken beaks? Never heard them called that before. That's just awesome, I love it. :)

[tdrmaquillage]

Hi I'm bumping ths because I am having the same problem and I really cannot figure it out. I created an email in Dreamweaver using these instructions [macromedia.com ]. As far as anyone can tell my file looks fine, but when I've sent it to myself or to other people, it's just not happening. I've tried sending via Mail, Netscape Mail and Thunderstorm. I've totally run out of ideas of what the problem could be. Any new thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

- Tania :)

[jamesa]

tdrmaquillage: In Netscape mail, go to the Insert Menu and select HTML. Should give you a box to paste the HTML in.

[derekryan]

I started this topic and I can tell you how I did it. Maybe it's not the best way but it worked.

I made and html in Dreamweaver MX on the Mac (OS X) and tried to email it but it did not worked. I tried Apple Mail (Panther) and Thunderbird and Entourage X. None of these were sending html as formatted html. Than I tried Outlook Express on Windows XP box I had and it worked fine. At the time I didn't have Tiger yet, which I received now. I didn't test this sending with Apple Mail 2 but as far as I know there is no option in prefs except "plain text" and "rich text". I just lokked again - no html. So in the end I did this on the Mac but I used OE on XP box to send it.

My html newsletter was very simple: one link to my website, few pictures and few logos in the table and some text. No CSS or other complicated things.

[Musicarl]

I used Max Bulk Mailer for my last newsletter:
[maxprog.com...]

It worked pretty well. It has a good feature that checks to make sure there are no duplicates or invalid addresses. I had to put in the <html> and <body> tags, but it handled the HTML portion.

[tdrmaquillage]

Hey

Many thanks, y'all!

I was beginning to think that the problem was not with what I was sending but how I was trying to send it. I switched to a different server and it worked when I sent it to myself (Mac) and when I sent it to my brother (PC), but it didn't work for my agent and another friend of mine (both Mac). Imma have to go use one of my friend's PC computers and see what that does.

I'll try the Netscape suggestion, however, and see what that does.

And I'll tell my agent to check out the Bulk Mailer since she's the one who will be sending this out to her list and she's also a Mac user.

Thanks again! :)

- Tania

[derekryan]

BTW. Does anyone knows any FREE bulk email mailer that works good on OS X? The only thing I see on version tracker is NewsLetter 2.1. Is it any good? Any other suggestions?

[jillreid]

I had exactly the same problem and tried the Netscape Mail method and it worked a treat. I created the page in Dreamweaver, uploaded to my server with absolute links in place then simply copied the code and pasted it into the email. Bingo!