Transcript Formatting the plain text message part in mass e

Formatting the plain text
message part in mass e-mail
October 27, 2009
Why use HTML?
“Good HTML creates branded, usable
and attractive email messages that
convert better overall than plain text.”
-Lyris HQ
http://www.lyrishq.com/index.php/Email-Marketing/20-HTML-Email-Tips-Ignore-at-Your-Own-Risk.html
Why is plain text important?
• Recipient preferences
• Some e-mail applications render plain text by
default
– GopherMail
• Some clients don’t render HTML
– Personal preference for a client
– Some mobile devices
• Images aren’t accessible
Plain text vs. HTML
• Plain text has no images
• Text can’t be linked to a Web page;
links are displayed in full
• The plain text content may be written
very differently than the HTML portion
Example: HTML
Example: plain text
•Cropped
•Text is one line per paragraph
Example: Lyris HQ HTML
Example: Lyris HQ plain text
Plain text in Lyris ListManager
• Lyris has an HTML to text function
• This scrapes the content of the HTML
part for text
• This provides an OK starting point
HTML to text: image handling
• Images are dropped entirely
• Content in image form needs to be
– changed to text
– dropped entirely
• Images with text aren’t accessible to begin
with. What happens if someone using a
screen reader runs across a content-heavy
image with no alt tag?
HTML to text: URL handling
• Inserted in line with text
• Wrapped in <>
• GopherMail doesn’t auto-link URLs
wrapped in <>
– GopherMail is huge for students
• Generally ugly
URL handling example
“The press release includes a link to the University of Minnesota’s
Imagine Fund Web site.”
becomes
“The press release
<http://www1.umn.edu/news/news-releases/2009/UR_CONTENT_132893.html>
includes a link to the University of Minnesota’s Imagine Fund Web site
<http://www.artsandhumanities.umn.edu/>."
HTML to text: line wrapping
• Lines are wrapped at 70 characters
• Some clients may wrap at less than 70,
producing something akin to
Here’s one line that’s too long and will get
wrapped
over. But that’s not a problem is you’re
aesthetically
vacant.
How do we handle plain text?
• At a minimum, clean it up
– Remove <> from URLs
– unwrap lines
• A bit more
– Develop a consistent format
– Rewrite text to allow better placement of
URLs
Tips & tricks
• Provide your HTML content on Web
(always) and link to it from the text part
• Use display:none; as an inline style on
image replacement copy
• Use a content management system to
repurpose content into HTML and text
parts
Link to HTML on the Web
• Make the link to the HTML version the first
item readers see
• Put the content on your Web site, not just in
the Lyris archive
• The School of Public Health (Mark
Engebretson) does this for “The Weekly
SPHere”
– Roughly half of unique clickthroughs for SPHere
are attributable to this link
SPHere HTML part
SPHere text part (cropped)
SPHere Web version
Use the display:none; style
• Pete Riemenschneider in the Institute of
Technology pointed this trick out
• Lyris won’t copy image alt tags to text
• Lyris will copy text in hidden
paragraphs/cells/etc.
• Useful for templates with content that
will be in a consistent location
ITSS Announcements HTML
ITSS Announcements Text
Repurposing in a CMS
• Content elements are split out
• Formatting should be very consistent
• Different layouts/renderings are created
for each part
News Wire on the Web
News Wire HTML
(header and footer in Lyris template)
News Wire text
(header and footer in Lyris template)
Other tips & tricks
• What are you doing?