The AOL email Format Problem

Sending multipart messages to earlier AOL mail clients ?

[YadiYudi]

I have built my own email engine and am using multipart html/text email messages.

Now for the AOL problem. I can obviosuly send AOL all text, but would rather send multipart instead. Can the earlier versions of AOL take the multipart format? I'd like to send AOL html/AOL text versions to all. Is that safe?

My current understanding is:

AOL 7.0: HTML, Rich Text, Plain Text
AOL 6.0: HTML, Rich Text, Plain Text
AOL 5.0: Rich Text, Plain Text
AOL 4.0: Plain Text Only

Rick

[DaveAtIFG]

Is there an expert on AOL email among us? Help!

[keyplyr]

> expert on AOL

Isn't that an oxymoron?

[Fair]

I'm not an expert on AOL technology (I don't know much about e-mail technology at all, so forgive me if I sound clueless), but I edited newsletters for an AOL partner for three years and have spent a lot of time struggling with the best way to format e-mail for AOL.

I've found the best thing is to send plain text messages with HTML coding for the links ONLY.

This is the only format I found that displays correctly for all versions of AOL (4.0 through 6.0, anyway), PC and Mac, etc.

AOL e-mail will not convert URLs to hyperlinks (however, I haven't checked this in 6.0). But you can include HTML coding for hyperlinks, even in AOL 4.0.

A couple other things I learned:

AOL's font is not justified and its e-mail lines wrap automatically. So you don't have to limit line length, and in fact, it may look better if you don't.

Keep your e-mail to about 260 lines or less to avoid AOL members receiving it as a download.

I can't answer the multipart question because I don't understand it... sorry; I told you I was clueless! (Yes, I am a typical AOL member.) But I hope this is some help.

[YadiYudi]

Keep your e-mail to about 260 lines or less to avoid AOL members receiving it as a download.

Now, that is an important piece of information!
Thank you very very much.

[frogg]

There are some specifics on with formatting HTML mail for AOL email clients in this article at ArsDigita:-
[arsdigita.com...]

Kinda coincidental, 'cause I've just mentioned this on another thread (Sending HTML Email properly, a checklist) over here:-
[webmasterworld.com...]