Tips from the Windows Pros: Creating Formatted Email

So you know a lot about email. What about the fancy-looking messages you get in your Inboxthe ones that look like Web pages? This type of email is created with HTML formatting.

And how do you create fancy HTML email messages, anyway? In its simplest form, HTML mail lets you format the font and other goodies like color and background. Well, we already talked about stationery. So you know that this is HTML mail. You can also use the Insert Picture button on the OE toolbar to insert an image. But your ability to design a document with much control is still quite limited.

If you want to create more elaborate email, with tables, text that wraps around pictures, and lots of links in it, you'll probably want to use a Web-design program such as FrontPage or Dreamweaver. After you've designed a page there

1.	Start a new email in OE.
2.	Select and copy the new page you designed in your Web design program and paste into the new email you're constructing. As you paste in the text and images, they should appear in your email.
3.	Adjust as necessary.

Test the look of the email you created by sending the sample mail to yourself; see how it looks when you open it. Make sure to test it by sending it to another computer, too. That way you can determine if there are any missing images. Your test can be deceptive if you send and receive from the same computer, since the images you use are already on the source computer. If the images are missing from the email, they are still likely to show up if you use the source computer for testing it, simply because they are being called up from your local hard drive.

To keep your email easy to read, keep the page fairly narrow. Also, don't expect your message to display with as much predictably as it does in a Web browser since HTML-capable email programs just aren't as polished in their ability to render HTML. It's a good idea to check your mail in various email clients first to get an idea of how it will look to a variety of readers.

Much spam HTML email only downloads the HTML code and the text portion into OE. The rest of the images are not loaded in until you look at the mail (assuming you are online at the time). When you click on the mail to read it, the images stream in because the HTML code in the message "points" to the image sources, which are out on Web servers somewhere across the Internet. This is an acceptable way to construct your HTML mail, but it assumes your readers are online. If you want to be sure people can read your mail offline, then you should include the images in the email itself. However, this does make the file larger, and can slow down the transfer time. Make sure to keep your images relatively small and compressed (as a rule, your images shouldn't exceed about 25KB). Use a program such as Fireworks, FrontPage, or Photoshop to optimize photos and other images for transmission over the Web.

TIP

There are some folks whose programs cannot read HTML mail. In the subject line of HTML mail, I like to include the words "HTML version" so people will know not to bother reading it if their email program isn't HTML-savvy. Then I send another message that is plain text, with subject line that includes the words "Plain text version."