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?