Responsive Email Templates are pointless?

[CTOverton]

I run a club, I wanted to make a fancy email newsletter. Through some research I found adobe Dreamweaver has a responsive email template. I have used Dreamweaver before (a bit) but it was really difficult to get the template the way I wanted it. When I was done and ready to add it to an email and send it I realized... there is literally no easy way to do this. Apparently all mail servers use different types of coding for how they look at html so like gmail is different from mobile me, yahoo is different from Hotmail etc. So even if I could get it into an email client and send it it would look right. I ended up having to host a website and send people links. Previous forums I looked at suggested to just give up on adobe all together and use clients like mail-chimp. So my question is, are responsive email templates in Dreamweaver really pointless? Or is there something I don't know...

Simple questions:

- Is there an easier way to design a nice looking email template (i.e. in illustrator and then transfer it over to Dreamweaver or an easy way to export to html)

    - I did see an example of pulling assets from Photoshop but there was a very specific way it was setup and I haven't found any tutorials that help explain that.

- Is there an easy way to export from Dreamweaver to implement in an email?

- If I can't send it directly out of gmail or simply embed the html (can I embed the html?) what is the next best option?

I know that companies have figured it out cause I get emails from amazon, target, etc all day, so what is the secret?

[BenPleysier]

Google the subject. One such search gave me https://webdesign.tutsplus.com/articles/creating-a-simple-responsive-html-email--webdesign-12978

[CTOverton]

I did my fair share of googling but somehow I missed this. Thank you very much, I'm going to work through it when I can and see if it answers all the questions I had. Really appreciate it!

[occulus.nigra]

Further, once you get the hang of the html need and lay out the mail as you like, you can always save it as a template. Just keep:

1. Logos, addresses and non-variables in the non-editable regions

2. headlines, text, images, etc., in the editable regions.

A good emailer program would be a great helper. One such is Sendblaster. Bulk email software - mass email software | SendBlaster . They seem to have a free version as well. Plus there are others.

While you can design directly in (most of) them and save the template, what I do is design in DW. Copy all the html across, fine tune in the program and save the template there.

[occulus.nigra]

@BenPleysier: As usual, the problem lies in using the right keywords!

[Ben M]

The problem that you will run into with emails that DW doesn't account for is the code you actually insert into the template.  There are a lot of rules that do not work with a lot of clients and whether you use tools like Mailchimp, Adobe Marketing Cloud, Eloqua, Marketo, Constant Contact, or any other tool out there, you will run into the same issues even with their editor.  I would typically recommend if you are relying on email a lot and want to keep it as consisten as possible to use a tool like Litmus ( Litmus: Email Marketing, Email Design & Email Testing Tools  )to test your emails which will give you a fairly good representation of what your final product will look like.  You can also use things like this CSS guide from Campaign Monitor ( CSS Support Guide for Email Clients | Campaign Monitor  ) as a guide to let you know what will work in most of your common email clients to help you from falling into certain pitfalls of email coding.

[Nancy OShea]

1.  Email is primarily text communication.

2.  Email clients vary wildly and they don't render HTML & CSS the same way a browser would.

3.  Many email clients don't show images for security reasons. 

4.  Unlike web pages, HTML emails need to be in a table and minimally styled with inline CSS.

I do not recommend using Photoshop or Illustrator to create image-based emails (see reason #3). 

HTML Emails:  What You Need To Know

HTML E-Mail & Newsletter Blasts - http://alt-web.com/

[occulus.nigra]

Nancy, to answer your points...

1. Not so when it comes to an email newsletter... witness Adobe's own 'Create' mailer. Not to mention hosts of others. Those pure, or even largely, text based mailers are virtually history.

2. Point taken... so keep the html 'simple' (lowest common mean) and only inline styling. External style sheets are a big no-no. Always have a link to an online version of your email for browser display.

3. Most do... with the caveat to give you the option to download the image, if it's not built into the mail. To anticipate a non-download of image, the browser friendly version comes into play.

4. Tables do make email design easier and keeps them constant across email clients. So what's the problem with that? Yes, styling must be inline.

Regarding your last comment, "I do not recommend using Photoshop or Illustrator to create image-based emails." Yes and no. One can certainly use them for design and exporting the relevant images for web use. But one would need to translate the basic design into html.

Also, ideally, it is advised to upload a pure text version. This, while good practice is not always essential. Specially if your images are linked - not embedded - and you have a web version.

[CTOverton]

Really appreciate your thoughts Nancy!

The reason I suggested Photoshop and illustrator was less about the images and more so about the layout. Laying out placement of text, graphics, sections, and paragraphs is much easier in those programs for quick designs. Also I know this topic is about email newsletters but I would also like a nice way to layout web pages as well.

Thanks!

[Nancy OShea]

You may THINK it's easier but in the long run it's not because whatever you create in a graphics app has to be entirely deconstructed & re-coded in DW.  Please understand that graphics apps cannot generate stable code for emails or the web.   At best, the code is OK for quick visual comps to show the client before you rebuild it in DW.

Nancy

[occulus.nigra]

You're right... a program like Illustrator or Photoshop helps you lay out your site / page.  And, of course you need them to generate the graphics and images for your site. But...

1. Don't use them to generate even a line of code!

2. By all means use them to develop your layouts and generate the 'fixed' images required - such as your headers, etc. Apart, of course, from the images and graphics you need.

[EASYPAY GROUP · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Yes, i would say responsive email-templates are pointless, like taking your brandspanking new 2wd Lamborghini offroad. Yes, your wheels will spin, but you'll look like a complete idiot half of the time.

My advice for HTML-emails is, much like everything else: KISS (Keep It Simple and Stupid)

The days we were using tables to layout our webpages are gone, unfortunately the same can't be said for HTML-emails.

Clients are many and support is usually low. You can't even use a HTML background-image consistently through css.

There are a lot of posts, and summaries online where you can spend much time trying to figure this all out. Some have already been mentioned here.

IMHO it's much better to make a clean and very simple e-mail, and guide your audience to your website where you can use all the bells and whistles you really want. Your clean and simple e-mail will probably get through more spamfilters too.

Have a nice day!

Greetz
Kristof

[Nancy OShea]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/EASYPAY+GROUP  wrote

You can't even use a HTML background-image consistently through css.

IMHO it's much better to make a clean and very simple e-mail, and guide your audience to your website where you can use all the bells and whistles you really want. Your clean and simple e-mail will probably get through more spamfilters too.

I couldn't have said it any better.

[john_stephanites]

I am wondering if anyone has tried using Foundation for Emails? Does this take care of some of these issues?

[BenPleysier]

I did use Foundation for Emails about 4 years ago. I know that Foundation has improved since then, but I doubt that the result will be much different. I now use a Starter Template in Dreamweaver after deleting all of the content that I do not need.

Actually I love the idea that EASYPAY GROUP​(Kristof) has regarding KISS.