(CSS) About styling signatures and/or mailers...

[Under S.]

I have a question for the vets at creating HTML signatures and mailers : basically, how do you handle styling?

Do you link to a CSS (stylesheet) located on a public server - which I already do this with the images - or do you include it in the HTML file, between <style> tags before the body?

Or do you do neither, and simply apply "style=" to every item regardless of how redundantly bloated things can get going that route?

Thanks!

[Nancy OShea]

Keeping in mind that e-mail clients are limited and do not behave the same as modern web browsers, I think you should look at HTML E-mail Templates and online signature generators that are industry tested to work in Outlook, Gmail, Apple Mail, etc...  And keep it simple. 

Online Signature Generator

https://www.hubspot.com/email-signature-generator

Free Litmus responsive e-mail templates

https://litmus.com/resources/free-responsive-email-templates

A Google search will reveal others.

Another Creative Cloud member option is to send your e-mail list a URL to your Adobe Spark page or video.

https://spark.adobe.com/

[Under S.]

I am specifically curious about the best method to implement the CSS (with plans to study a broader tutorial on email marketing later).

These are the 3 obvious methods I see :

1. Define classes in a separate (linked-to) stylesheet located online.
2. Define classes in the HTML page itself, before everything else, between <style> tags.
3. Avoid using classes altogether, and apply CSS customisation directly to individual elements via "style=" (would mean more repetition/redundancy)

I am currently using method #2 and it appears to be working everywhere I tried it (including the notoriously picky Outlook 2016). In your opinion, is it generally safe to continue styling Sigs & Mailers this way?

Thanks!

[Nancy OShea · Accepted solution]

The industry-tested method is #3, inline styles.