Html format email

[shapper]

Hello,

I am need to send a newsletter to my web site members. I would like to
send it in Html format.

1. What Doctype should I use?
2. What else should I consider? Encoding, etc ...
3. I think I should include the CSS in the Html itself right?
Is there any considerations to the CSS I should use? Text format,
etc ...
4. The images should be on my web server and all images on the
newsletter should have an url as follows:
http://www.mydomain.com/Newsletter/Image1.jpg
...

Thanks,
Miguel

 

[rf]

Hello,

I am need to send a newsletter to my web site members. I would like to
send it in Html format.

Don't. Send a plain text message pointing to the HTML newsletter on your web
site.

4. The images should be on my web server and all images on the
newsletter should have an url as follows:
http://www.mydomain.com/Newsletter/Image1.jpg

Which may not be seen. Email clients (well mine anyway) ship with "don't
display images" turned on. This is to stop spammers from determining that
they have hit a valid email address by the fact that I try to download their
images. No images (or anything else for that matter, including CSS files and
JavaScript) means no phoning home.

 

[richard]

Don't. Send a plain text message pointing to the HTML newsletter on your web
site.


Which may not be seen. Email clients (well mine anyway) ship with "don't
display images" turned on. This is to stop spammers from determining that
they have hit a valid email address by the fact that I try to download their
images. No images (or anything else for that matter, including CSS files and
JavaScript) means no phoning home.

No images wouldn't stop them from knowing they've hit a good addy.
The mere fact that it was accepted does.

JS is turned on by default.
I can't say for certain, but there may be a way of triggering some
event to tell the sender that JS is off, ergo, valid addy.

 

[rf]

No images wouldn't stop them from knowing they've hit a good addy.
The mere fact that it was accepted does.

They don't know it was accepted. They just know it was not rejected.

Many mail servers have given up rejecting spam. It just causes too much
bounce traffic.

JS is turned on by default.
I can't say for certain, but there may be a way of triggering some
event to tell the sender that JS is off, ergo, valid addy.

How? With javascript?

Besides I would never ever let an email client run Javascript.

 

[Bergamot]

JS is turned on by default.

Not in mail clients, it isn't. Even Outlook Express has it off by
default these days. I believe web mail systems strip out JS by default,
as well.

 

[dorayme]

Hello,

I am need to send a newsletter to my web site members. I would like to
send it in Html format.

To this question from my clients, I always try to persuade them to,
instead, make a webpage with the newsletter on it or make a PDF, and
simply email the subscribers with the URL where the victims can see or
download it.

....

4. The images should be on my web server and all images on the
newsletter should have an url as follows:
http://www.mydomain.com/Newsletter/Image1.jpg
...

I have images for HTML emails turned off and though this saves me
bandwidth, it looks bad and so still manages to irritate me. Believe me,
a martian irritation is not like an earthling one. It is bad.

For someone like you, who should be a wiz at making HTML pages by now
considering your many questions and all the help you have received in
the last year, your natural course is to make a web page. <g>

 

[dorayme]

Don't. Send a plain text message pointing to the HTML newsletter on your
web
site.

I see this all the time here. I think it's outmoded and silly.

Yes, I understand some of you are on dial up.

However, I've been sending an HTML newsletter to 250+ people since 2001.
I have not received a single complaint.

Virtually all email I receive is HTML.

People? It's almost 2009.[/QUOTE]

OK Ed. But, you being a reasonable man, things are about to change for
you from 2008 on. Here is one argument:

Sending any number, n, of plain text emails with a link to a page of
size, S, puts a whole lot less bandwidth strain on you than sending S, n
number of times. It also beats hands down the resultant strain on the
internet system because of the number of people who do not actually get
to read/see or want to read/see the newsletter *that particular
posting*.

A text link unclicked is a much smaller footprint on a strained and
crowded world than an unread but fully sent and loaded HTML email.

There are other arguments but I will leave you to digest this one first.
<g>

 

[Neredbojias]

Much appreciated.


Oops! I meant "I FEEL your pain." Sigh. Fingers faster than brain.
Common ailment at my age.

Ya forgot this one:

"For those who live in areas where brodband is not..."

 

[Adrienne Boswell]

I see this all the time here. I think it's outmoded and silly.

Yes, I understand some of you are on dial up.

However, I've been sending an HTML newsletter to 250+ people since
2001.
I have not received a single complaint.

Virtually all email I receive is HTML.

People? It's almost 2009.

I use mailwasher which reads the headers and the first few lines of text
- giving me a chance to see the mail before it is downloaded, and
optionally to delete it.

My boss loves to send HTML formatted emails that include a background
graphic and a graphic in her signature. Even though we are on
broadband, and on the same mail server, across the room from eachother,
there is always a significant blip while waiting for the graphics on her
emails. I have asked her repeatedly not to send HTML mail, but she
thinks that everyone likes it.

The newsletter we send out weekly goes out to 10,000+ people. I keep a
very clean list - if you want out, you're out. If your mail comes back
underliverable, you're out. We recently received an email from a
recipient who is in the Iraqi war, and she said she really enjoyed the
newsletter because it was a moral booster.

The newsletter is sent multipart text and HTML. When I get this
newsletter, since mailwasher only reads text, I get the text version,
and then when I download it, I have the HTML version.

That is the best solution, multipart - text for those who want text, and
HTML for those who want HTML.

 

[dorayme]

OK Ed. But, you being a reasonable man, things are about to change for
you from 2008 on. Here is one argument:

Sending any number, n, of plain text emails with a link to a page of
size, S, puts a whole lot less bandwidth strain on you than sending S, n
number of times. It also beats hands down the resultant strain on the
internet system because of the number of people who do not actually get
to read/see or want to read/see the newsletter *that particular
posting*.

A text link unclicked is a much smaller footprint on a strained and
crowded world than an unread but fully sent and loaded HTML email.

There are other arguments but I will leave you to digest this one first.
<g>

I hear you, and, as Bill Clinton was fond of saying: "I feel your pain."

However, I, and virtually all of my newsletter recipients, have no pain
in this regard. Bandwidth is a trivial matter. It continually becoming
a more trivial matter for more of the world every day.

This nonsense of "strain on the Internet ..." is just silly. The
infrastructure is constantly being expanded.

For those who live in areas where brodband is not prevalent and where
infrastructure is not being developed, I am sorry. But for most of us
in developed areas, it is simply not an issue.[/QUOTE]

Well, it is not nonsense really you know! And it does not necessarily
have everything to do with dial up or slow connections. Even if it all
happened superfast, it would still be objectionable on energy
conservation and other grounds.

The pattern of the moral argument is a well known one.

1. Fred, Mary and Justin ... doing A causes no harm
2. Therefore it is ok for everyone to do A

is a bad argument if harm is caused by a sufficient number of people
doing A.

Emails do not get sent by magic, electricity is used. That means coal
mainly... and well, you can see where I am going...

Ed, it is 2009 soon, after all! Time for more modern ways of thinking.

 

[rf]

Ya forgot this one:

"For those who live in areas where brodband is not..."

Ya forgot this one:

"for those who pay through the nose per *kilobyte* to receive emails on
their telephone but need it check emails on the road but will happily wait
until they get home to read a newsletter on a real computer".

 

[Irina Rempt]

Ya forgot this one:

"for those who pay through the nose per *kilobyte* to receive emails on
their telephone but need it check emails on the road but will happily
wait until they get home to read a newsletter on a real computer".

Also, "for those who get so much spam HTML email that it's easier to filter
anything in HTML into the trash immediately because all serious
correspondents know to use plain text".

Irina

 

[Neredbojias]

Ya forgot this one:

"for those who pay through the nose per *kilobyte* to receive emails
on their telephone but need it check emails on the road but will
happily wait until they get home to read a newsletter on a real
computer".

I was just making a reference to the "brodband" (vs "broadband") in the
note, not making a judgment about html email. Can see both sides to
that story.

 

[Rick Brandt]

OK Ed. But, you being a reasonable man, things are about to change for
you from 2008 on. Here is one argument:

Sending any number, n, of plain text emails with a link to a page of
size, S, puts a whole lot less bandwidth strain on you than sending
S, n number of times. It also beats hands down the resultant strain
on the internet system because of the number of people who do not
actually get to read/see or want to read/see the newsletter *that
particular posting*.

A text link unclicked is a much smaller footprint on a strained and
crowded world than an unread but fully sent and loaded HTML email.

There are other arguments but I will leave you to digest this one
first. <g>

Interjecting for an opinion from the "plain text only" crowd. I don't think
your arguments are without merit, but I do think your fighting a battle that
you already lost several years ago.

The question is how do your thoughts change for HTML messages that use HTML
only for its formatting capabilities? Different fonts, some color, and
tables that look and behave like tables. In other words nothing at all
included that "phones home". Do you have the same objections?

My apps generate Emails pretty regularly. Mostly intranet, but some go to
the outside world and for many I use HTML because the requirements of the
message make plain text look pretty awful. Links to a server resource would
not work, because these are dynamically generated and don't get me started
on attachments. With each passing month I become more convinced that
eventually attachments will be abandoned completely. I just have too many
that never arrive or which the recipient cannot open.

I understand that I am still sending addditional characters, but I write my
own markup so it is very clean. I don't think the overall size is affected
that much. Certainly a plain text Email with a quoted reply would be larger
than one of my HTML messages.

Also, since most Email clients restrict downloading images unless the user
"ok"s it, is the problem even for those cases really as bad as you describe?

 

[Sherm Pendley]

I see this all the time here. I think it's outmoded and silly.

Agreed. It would be far better to accept the fact that many people don't
mind HTML email, and give realistic advice - such as, send your email as
multipart/mixed, so that those who prefer plain text can view it as
such.

sherm--

 

[Sherm Pendley]

Oops! I meant "I FEEL your pain." Sigh. Fingers faster than
brain.

Come to think of it, that was Bill's problem too...

sherm--

 

[dorayme]

Interjecting for an opinion from the "plain text only" crowd. I don't think
your arguments are without merit, but I do think your fighting a battle that
you already lost several years ago.

It could be argued that there is no hope that the world will stop
getting "unnecessarily" disastrously warm. We might have lost the battle

The question is how do your thoughts change for HTML messages that use HTML
only for its formatting capabilities? Different fonts, some color, and
tables that look and behave like tables. In other words nothing at all
included that "phones home". Do you have the same objections?

In principle, the argument above relies only on the size of the emails.
If everyone acted to make the smallest footprint while yet achieving
their worthwhile goals, then the mere fact of HTML does not necessarily
come into it. But the facts are mostly that HTML emails are fatter than
plain text. And the argument, if you look at it carefully, depends on
the crucial fact of the unread or unnoticed number of emails. If all
emails were read carefully and all in them was perused by all who
received them, then this argument against HTML emails would fail.
Getting a plain text email and clicking to a real 'formatted' web page
with or without pics would perhaps be no better than getting an HTML
email in the first place.

My apps generate Emails pretty regularly. Mostly intranet, but some go to
the outside world and for many I use HTML because the requirements of the
message make plain text look pretty awful. Links to a server resource would
not work, because these are dynamically generated and don't get me started
on attachments. With each passing month I become more convinced that
eventually attachments will be abandoned completely. I just have too many
that never arrive or which the recipient cannot open.

I understand that I am still sending addditional characters, but I write my
own markup so it is very clean. I don't think the overall size is affected
that much. Certainly a plain text Email with a quoted reply would be larger
than one of my HTML messages.

Your last sentence is cooking the books... but never mind.

Also, since most Email clients restrict downloading images unless the user
"ok"s it, is the problem even for those cases really as bad as you describe?

In your situation, perhaps the cost is worth it. I do not criticise you
for doing what you do. At least I am not one to say never send an HTML
email. I am just pointing out that it is not ok for everyone to do this
just because it is ok or not harmful for some to do it.

 

[dorayme]

I can, however, save you a lot of trouble by giving you
a lot of further trouble, to wit, a HUGE reading list to digest:

[endless URLs follow...]

<g>

 

[Roy A.]

Hello,

I am need to send a newsletter to my web site members. I would like to
send it in Html format.

1. What Doctype should I use?
2. What else should I consider? Encoding, etc ...
3. I think I should include the CSS in the Html itself right?
   Is there any considerations to the CSS I should use? Text format,
etc ...
4. The images should be on my web server and all images on the
newsletter should have an url as follows:
   http://www.mydomain.com/Newsletter/Image1.jpg

You allready have those tings. Check out your own website:
http://www.mydomain.com/

 

[Nik Coughlin]

Also, "for those who get so much spam HTML email that it's easier to
filter
anything in HTML into the trash immediately because all serious
correspondents know to use plain text".

Which is fine (if somewhat extreme) if it's personal email but *completely*
retarded if you use it for work