HTML email problem

kukisvoomchor

kukisvoomchor

New Member
For the first time, one of my web clients is asking me to create formatted HTML emails for him. In order to do that, of course, I need to be able to create sample HTML messages and email them to myself so I can look at them and see how I'm doing.

I hand code my HTML. But when I try that and send it out, all I get in return is my [un-interpreted] source. I've also tried simply forwarding, to myself, commercial HTML emails I've received (since they obviously work). Again, ordinary source code comes back.
:confused:

My commercial ISP's tech support theorized(?) that their outfit perhaps doesn't allow its clients to transmit out HTML email. So I tried sending a test out from my own site's server in Canada (in ASP using CDONTS). Same result when I receive it: Un-rendered "<body>la dee da</body>" text.

Tutorials on the subject say nothing about this. Is there a vital step between typing out the code and hitting "Send" I'm not aware of?
 
kukisvoomchor

kukisvoomchor

New Member
Oh, yes. All of it. I'm entering everything as if I'm creating a web page. One sample consists of (which renders through fine on my browser when I look at it that way):

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3=
org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns=3D"http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<title>Here is a title</title>
</head>
<BODY bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<p>Talking? During horse-head bookends?!</p>
</body>
</html>
 
Phreaddee

Phreaddee

Super Moderator
Staff member
the other thing I can think of is that usually there is an option to send email as a html or as text only.

however if this is something you intend to do more often than just a "one off" I'd suggest setting up a campaign monitor or mailchimp account for your client. much easier to manage, and you have some very good reporting/accounting for each campaign.
 
M

MarkR

New Member
How are you sending the emails?

When you send a HTML email you need to set the headers as html content as well otherwise the client will just interpret it as plain text.

See here.
 
kukisvoomchor

kukisvoomchor

New Member
Wow, solved it!! I'm posting the fix here so others my benefit.

It was a problem on the email client side. I'm using Thunderbird, though the route to take with other apps is probably similar. As with most email apps, they don't expect you to want to enter raw HTML code directly, and their help menu doesn't directly address that.

Now... there is a dropdown INSERT menu which opens up a special entry field for raw code, but that dropdown doesn't show unless I check a box in my account preferences (Account settings: Composition and Addressing => Composition => then check the box for "Compose messages in HTML format").

Once you do that, you can create a new message as normal but this time that INSERT dropdown is available at the top. One of the choices it offers is HTML. When you select it, that special field appears. Paste or type your code in there, and there you go. Your message will now send and receive as an HTML email.

Thanks for all the help.:D
 
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