Html coding for emailers/newsletters

[Krish1980]

Is it absolutely essential to use tables? Can divs not be used? And If I have to use inline styling (I’ve been told that I cannot use style sheets and resets), how do I take care of default spacing?

And what if I just create an outer table container and then code the inner html using divs?

Can someone post a basic emailer code?(only html)

[SgtLegend]

**1.** `

` elements should NEVER be used in HTML emails, they break in pretty much all email clients

**2.** You can use reset CSS as it works for newer email clients and also can supply fixes for email clients that support them

**3.** You can only use `

` elements as per my first point

See the following link which is a basic boilerplate for HTML emails, it contains reset CSS to fix cross email client bugs. http://htmlemailboilerplate.com/

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_Also some tips from my experience in building advanced HTML emails._

**-** Always avoid `` tags, they are very inconsistent and cause more issues than solving them

**-** When using `` tags always add `style=”display: block;”` as it will remove the default spacing

**-** Always declare `font-family`, `font-size`, `color` etc. inline on specific elements and not on the parent, some email clients don’t respect the parent inline styles

**-** Always remember to set the `border=”0″` attribute on `` tags that are wrapped by an `` tag

**-** Try to avoid using too many `rowspan` and `colspan` attributes, some email clients have issues when rendering them

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You can find heaps more information at Campaign Monitor.

http://www.campaignmonitor.com/resources/
http://www.campaignmonitor.com/guides/coding/guidelines/
http://www.campaignmonitor.com/resources/will-it-work/

[Paulie_D]

I use [Mailchimp](http://mailchimp.com/?pid=GAW&source=website&gclid=COSAh8ydrrUCFefJtAodeTAACw “Mailchimp”) and they have lots of templates use can download to use for examples.

[kbongers]

I spent a year building weekly and bi-weekly emails across 7 brands for a Fortune 200 company with each one going to between 2 and 7 million subscribers. Here’s what I can tell you:

1)Yes, you have to use tables. It’s the only way to get a consistant display across several different mail clients.

2) You can you some embedded styles in the header, but inline will be most of what you get to use.

3) Get used to nesting. The more complex the layout, the more you’ll have to do it.

4) Microsoft will be the bane of your existence. This will look great in every client except specific versions of outlook, and there’s often little rhyme or reason to it.

5) This is not a plug, but Litmus is a great tool to preview your content in almost every mail client at once. It can save you a lot of time and is great for testing. I’ve used several others, I like Litmus the best.

[Derek Wood]

Solid lists. I just wanted to mention that most of these tags work great for craigslist ads too – so you’ll have that under your belt as well.

[Author]

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