html email newsletters help please!

milly · #1 (**permalink**) Sep 24th, 2007, 18:02

I am trying to work out how to send an email to about 50 people on a mailing list, currently held in a googlemail account. I thought it would be a case of doing an ordinary email and sending to the list (bcc of course) but it seems I was wrong!

I have seen that I should use html tables (arrggghhh!!) which I have never learned as I have only been learning html & css for a year or so and accessibility is a big deal to me so I have not used font tags etc. It seems that some things can be styled using inline css but not always, etc etc.

I just want to do a fairly simple email with a couple of images at the top (logos) and maybe some more next to paragraphs in the body of the email. The gmail thingy does not give a way to add images (nor do the others, aol can but not where i want them) and I can't work out a way of putting in the html - should I send an html file as an attachment or something? Can i use photos/pictures stored in googley picasa web albums?

I have looked at some tutorials but I still can't work out things like do i need a doctype, which one, and how do I get my notepad html code turned into an email?

The newsletter is for this organisation http://friendsofbwindiorphanage.googlepages.com/
Please get in touch if you would like to join the mailing list!:groupwave2::groupwave2:

alexgeek · #2 (**permalink**) Sep 24th, 2007, 18:04

you shouldn't be using html tables at all!

css is what you should be doing.
have you considered using the PHP mail function to send the email?

karinne · #3 (**permalink**) Sep 24th, 2007, 18:11

These 2 links might be of some help

A Guide to CSS Support in Email: 2007 Edition
Optimizing CSS presentation in HTML emails

There's probably some more but your best bet is to have a look at the CampaignMonitor website.

milly · #4 (**permalink**) Sep 24th, 2007, 18:41

I still am not sure about the actual sending of the html file.I have tried sending an html file as an attachment from gmail to my aol account but it arrives as an attached html file! However in the other direction an html file attached to an email sent from aol shows up in gmail as an email (in fact this caused me problems a while ago when someone was trying to send me html web pages she had written, they kept showing up in the email window instead of as attachments as I needed)

Could I attach my html file to an aol email, send to the gmail account and forward to my mailing list from there? Would that work?

What Doctype should it be - also do I use the same structure as a web page with
<html>
<head>
<title></title>
</head>
<body></body>

Sorry for all the questions!

As far as php goes I do not know how to do it! I am not being lazy here, I just do not have the time to learn another thing at the moment, over the past year I have learned HTML and CSS from scratch and I have loads of other things to learn about - SEO to get people to the sites, affiliates for fundraising, content for the new site and much more! I am also trying to learn about password protected photo galleries for another charity site (the one I learned the HTML & CSS for) So I really don't have time to learn more stuff at the moment. Also wouldn't I need a server with CGI to use php? These sites are on googlepages at the moment, not sure it supports php.

I could just send a plain text email out to everyone but I would prefer to have a few graphics for interest.

Would forwarding the one from AOL work?

alexgeek · #5 (**permalink**) Sep 24th, 2007, 18:53

if you want i can make you a very simple PHP mailer.
But I'd need a list of all the email addresses.

milly · #6 (**permalink**) Sep 24th, 2007, 21:50

I'm afraid that I am more clueless than you assume, I don't even know what that is or how I would use it with an email programme etc.

The whole of my experience is a website using html and css which has a very simple php contact form. http://www.northwiltsholidayclub.org.uk/feedback.html (Yes I know it needs updating and sorting out! ) I got a free php script from a helpful website which used a wizard to fill in the details, and read a couple of very basic php tutorial pages from the same website - that is the whole of my php knowledge. My html & css are pretty shaky as well. I am completely self-taught from internet tutorials. Thats one reason why the Bwindi Orphanage sites were started off on google page creator - we needed to get something online as quickly as possible (plus it enables other, even less knowledgeable people to add content from different places)

I have never even used Outlook, Thunderbird or any of those email programmes - I keep meaning to try them but I always have loads of other things to do and never get around to it, I just check an ever-growing number of aol (my ISP - something else I should get around to changing!) and webmail accounts. Should I use one of these programmes, would they allow me to input html code?

Thank you

karinne · #7 (**permalink**) Sep 25th, 2007, 00:39

Maybe something like this?

Newsberry

There's tons of email/newsletter things out there. I haven't found one that's free tho but .... some are cheaper than others.

milly · #8 (**permalink**) Sep 25th, 2007, 02:49

Is there no way of doing this using html files and gmail/yahoo/aol email accounts? We need to keep overheads as low as possible (the money would be much better used in Uganda) and at the moment the list is manageable, I just want to make an email that looks reasonable to any reader and I thought the notepad approach would be possible somehow!
As I mentioned, if I attach an html file to an aol email and forward it to a gmail account i get the html page in my email window (haven't tried any images & css with it yet though). Would forwarding that work for most email thingummies or could it end up being changed back into an html file attachment? Should I write the header stuff the same as in a web page?
Sorry I am doing lots of asking!

karinne · #9 (**permalink**) Sep 25th, 2007, 11:38

Well then read the links I gave you in my first post! They explain the HTML element and attributes and the CSS properties that you can use when creating an HTML email!

milly · #10 (**permalink**) Sep 26th, 2007, 01:02

Thank you, I have read them and have my newsletter nearly ready - I am going to start with just a couple of logo images at the top to avoid complications!

Still not really clear about actually sending it. I have not worked out how I can put html code into gmail, aol etc and end up with a lovely email arriving at the other end rather than a confusion of code! The only way i know of is that one I found by accident (when I wanted to receive an html file as an attachment!) where an html file sent to my gmail account as an attachment arrived in the body of the message. However I know that this does not work if I attach a file in gmail and send to aol - it arrives as an attachment (to the blank email) not as the email itself.

So, should I attach my message to an aol email, send it to my gmail account (where it will turn up as the message body) and then forward to the list from there? Will this work? Would I be better setting out Outlook or Thunderbird instead of going from the gmail interface?

Is the bit above the <body> the same as for a web page? (Doctype etc) What is the best doctype to use?

Sorry, I don't know if I am making myself very clear.
Thanks for the help!

demonzmedia · #11 (**permalink**) Sep 26th, 2007, 02:00

If you want to know what doctype to use etc look at the source code of a html email that a big company has sent you.

"you shouldn't be using html tables at all!"

Normally I would agree with you, however Outlook has really poor CSS support, so CSS that looks fine in the browser will look different in Outlook (it is painful). If you are using a css layout with div and you intend to send this to people using outlook you will have to test it for Outlook. Also, using an external CSS file can cause the email client to think you're trying to download an attachment without the request of the user and it will sometimes block it (which is incredibly irritating).

What I would suggest you do is download Outlook/Thunderbird and try sending test emails to yourself to see how they look (also, crank your security settings up to maximum to see what gets blocked and what gets through). Like different browsers, html email will look a little different in different email client software (note: if everyone used Thunderbird the world would be a better place as it has excellent css support, but everyone uses Outlook).

When you do this, you will also notice that html for email doesn't support all of the tags a browser would, so while I would like to say "use w3c compliant xhtml with an external css callout" the reality is most popular email clients aren't designed to work like web browsers and the only semi-guaranteed way to get it to look how you want is to test it on the client software.

_____________________________
Web Design Sydney - Demonz Media

alexgeek · #12 (**permalink**) Sep 26th, 2007, 06:18

Doctype? Most browser emails will open in another page, meaning two doctypes would be delcared

milly · #13 (**permalink**) Sep 27th, 2007, 21:28

So I shouldn't use a doctype then? I usually use xhtml strict so that kind of html mark-up should work ok whatever the browser declares shouldn't it? (ie ending all tags, using lower case, use style for fonts etc). (please tell me if I have got this totally wrong!)

How about the <head> bit, title etc. Do I need that?

Thanks for all the help so far, it has really been useful.

milly · #14 (**permalink**) Sep 27th, 2007, 21:33

I am assuming in need to use inline css as well (ouch!) but I don't really know, can I do put it all in <head>? I think I saw some weird advice somewhere to put the css after </head> and before <body> but can that be right?

Sorry, I seem to keep finding more questions to ask! I really do appreciate the help though. I am an 'accidental techie' person.

alexgeek · #15 (**permalink**) Sep 27th, 2007, 21:35

don't put it between:
</head>
<body>
thats bad code

milly · #16 (**permalink**) Sep 30th, 2007, 03:19

Oh My Goodness now I have found another difficulty.

I have just found out that a person receiving an email as a bcc can get the whole mailing list by replying to all.

Is there any way of avoiding this problem? Other than a paid-for service.

I can't believe how tricky this is turning out to be, I thought emails were easy!

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html email newsletters help please!