2022.2

See"Emailattachments"onpage167and"GeneratingEmailoutput"onpage876.
Designing an Email template
WiththeDesigneryoucandesignEmailtemplates.Itisstronglyrecommendedtostartcreatingan
EmailtemplatewithanEmailTemplateWizard,becauseitischallengingtodesignHTMLemailthat
looksgoodonallemailclients,devicesandscreensizesthatcustomersusewhentheyarereading
theiremail.
ThistopicexplainswhydesigningHTMLemaildesignisaschallengingasitis,whichsolutionsare
usedintheEmailTemplateWizardsanditlistsgoodpractices,forexampleregardingtheuseof
imagesinHTMLemail.ItwillhelpyoutocreatethebestpossibleEmailtemplatesintheDesigner.
HTMLemailchallenges
CreatingHTMLemailisn'tlikedesigningfortheWeb.That'sbecauseemailclientsaren'tlikeweb
browsers.EmailclientspassHTMLemailthroughapreprocessortoremoveanythingthatcouldbedan-
gerous,introduceprivacyconcernsorcausetheemailclienttobehaveunexpectedly.Thisincludes
removingjavascript,objectandembedtags,andunrecognizedtags.Mostpreprocessorsareoverly
restrictiveandremoveanythingwiththeslightestpotentialtoaffectthelayoutoftheiremailclient.Next,
theHTMLhastoberenderedsothatitissafetoshowwithintheemailclient.Unfortunately,desktop,
webmail,andmobileclientsallusedifferentrenderingengines,whichsupportdifferentsubsetsof
HTMLandCSS.Moreoftenthannot,theresultoftheseoperationsisthattheycompletelybreakthe
HTMLemail'slayout.
DesigningHTMLemailinPrintShopMailDesigner
TheproblemofHTMLemailisthatpreprocessingandrenderingenginesbreaktheHTMLemail'slay-
out.HTMLtables,however,aremostlyleftuntroubled.Astheyaresupportedbyeverymajoremailcli-
ent,theyareprettymuchtheonlywaytodesignHTMLemailsthatareuniversallysupported.That's
whyTablesareheavilyusedtopositiontextandimagesinHTMLemail.
Nestingtables(puttingtablesintablecells)andapplyingCSSstylestoeachtablecelltomakethe
emaillookgoodonallscreensizesisaprecisionworkthatcanbeatediousanddemanding.Connect's
DesigneroffersthefollowingtoolstomakedesigningHTMLemaileasier.
Email templates: Slate and others
ThemostobvioussolutionofferedintheDesigneristouseoneofthetemplatesprovidedwiththe
Designer;see"CreatinganEmailtemplatewithaWizard"onpage154.Thelayoutofthesetemplates
hasbeentestedandproventolookgoodinanyemailclient,onanydeviceandscreensize.TheTables
inthesetemplatesarenested(putinsideanothertable)andtheyhavenovisibleborders,soreaders
won'tnoticethem.
Page 151