How do I use HTML?

[Joy Beeson]

The beauty of putting it up on a server is that you can style it and
never a need to send html emails...

I have never once felt the slightest desire to send an HTML email.

I lie. I vaguely recall hand-coding a birthday greeting for someone
who was excessively fond of HTML e-mail, back when HTML messages sent
to me arrived as steaming piles of garbage that I had to copy to a
file and read with a browser.

 

[Joy Beeson]

(I used to receive newsletters from font foundries/ font distributors
and they were so attractive I was reluctant to unsubscribe even though
half the time I never read them.)

I subscribe to a fabric-store newsletter. They struggled with the
HTML problem for a couple of years -- back then not everybody could
receive it, and even now my mail reader blocks the remote images that
are the main point of a fabric-store newsletter. They tried sending
two versions, but HTML and plain text are Just Not the Same, and they
don't have the manpower to write two complete newsletters from
scratch.

Stephen finally hit upon a simple and elegant solution: the first
line of each newsletter is a link to a web page displaying the same
message, and there are enough clues in the text to tell me whether or
not I want to click the link.

It's even more elegant from the store's point of view: with my
browser instantiated and my data cable plugged in, it's no trouble at
all to start shopping.

Joy Beeson
--
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://roughsewing.home.comcast.net/ -- sewing
http://n3f.home.comcast.net/ -- Writers' Exchange
The above message is a Usenet post.
I don't recall having given anyone permission to use it on a Web site.