Designing for email... help!

[Dom Palmer]

Hello all,

This is my first post as I have just signed up.. can't quite believe its taken me this long as I have absorbed much of the good advice on the forums already! I'm hoping I can pick your brains with something.. I have a design (created through Illustrator) intended for email circulars, an advertisement for a exercise class, but have never designed for this output before. Do you know if there is any way I can place the image as the body of the email without writing HTML? Is there any way I can place the image as a pdf file perhaps? without having to add it as an attachment.

Anyones help on this would be greatly appreciated!
Many thanks,

Dom

[DesignVHL]

no, you would need to use html to pull in the image - which would need to be hosted online. Your html needs to include absolute links to any images online.

PDF files you cannot embed into an email, and you cannot send files as attachments obviously.

Simple HTML is your best bet here.

*and its always good to include a copy of the html email online so people can read it if they have trouble viewing it...something like"

Click here to read this email online if your having trouble viewing.

[Dom Palmer]

Thanks for your help, i'll work on it!

Cheers!

Dom

[SurfPark]

I would try and design your email in an HTML editor and see how it works. If you have Dreamweaver, that's the place to start. If don't have it, try Nvu (http://www.nvu.com/). Its the same kind of program, but a different publisher. You can "cheat" and work in the design view for as long as you can.

What you CAN use in emails:
- HTML
- images (jpg, gif)...linked remotely

What you SHOULD NOT use in emails:
- Flash
- PDFs
- audio files
- video files

The problem with rich media is that its always sent as an attachment even if its embedded into the email. Many systems don't accept attachments. Likewise, many users won't open them.

[DesignVHL]

Plus, you want to keep the email file size pretty small too...Best to keep it simple.

[MikeTheVike]

You better test it in multiple email clients, Outlook, Yahoo! mail, Gmail, etc. The yall render html mail differently. Its actually quite the pain in the @$$.

[Dom Palmer]

wow thanks for the great replies guys.. i've downloaded Nvu and will get learning it.

Thanks again

[garricks]

Ugh. We use Novell GroupWise at work and it NEVER lets HTML e-mail through.

*and it's always good to include a copy of the html email online so people can read it if they have trouble viewing it...something like

"Click here to read this email online if you're having trouble viewing."

That always helps me when I'm at work.