Stand up for web standards in HTML email
As designers ourselves, we’ve been through the fight for web standards in browsers, and are enjoying the rewards today, with standards support at an all time high. However, when it came to HTML emails, we felt like Marty McFly going back to 1998, still having to use structural tables instead of nice CSS.
From our Campaign Monitor and MailBuild customers we continually heard the same thing - why is it so hard to build a decent HTML email? The answer was not that nobody really cared, it was that the people who cared weren’t in a position to make any difference, or were not getting any support.
That’s what the Email Standards Project is about: Making sure that people do care, that they do see why having standards support for email clients is important. And about making sure that our voices are heard by the people who can make a difference, the email client developers.
This is not about complaining or being unrealistic. It’s about making contact with the right people, and getting them all the support they can use to improve their email clients. We want to work with the design community and the email clients to set some goals for email standards so that we can aim at a future when HTML email is not so hard.
So welcome to the Email Standards Project, it’s great that you’ve ended up here. Have a look around the website, and read more about why web standards are important for email. Then, if you agree, investigate some ways you can help.
We’d love to hear from you, so make sure you leave a comment or drop us an email, and signup for the email newsletter or RSS feeds to keep up to date. It’s time for Email Standards.
I’ll stand up for no html emails (I would rather receive a text email than a html one).
You should always have that option - everybody should send multipart text+html so if you prefer the text, you get the text. We’re talking about the HTML part here.
Well done on this guys - I totally appreciate how much work goes into a project like this, you really do feel like you’re climbing a mountain whose top you will never reach. But you’ve delivered! Now the real work begins :)
You know what, you’ve even inspired me to at least investigate the possibility of moving away from my traditional Stalinist text only mailouts :)
@Omega Torrents:
“I’ll stand up for no html emails (I would rather receive a text email than a html one).”
That’s fine - that’s your choice. You can use an email programme that doesn’t support HTML, and then you’ll only get plain text. However, HTML email can bring many benefits (and not just to spammers and advertisers) that others of us would like to enjoy.
I vote for no HTML at all in mail. Can’t you just send text link to a website? ... I hate hate hate hate HTML emails.
Notice that the two major corporate e-mail cients are listed under the clients that have “poor” “compliance”. Perhaps there’s a clue there as to the popularity of HTML e-mails in the corporate environment.
You do realize that a reasonable number of companies completely block all HTML e-mail from entering their networks, right? There’s a reason for that. HTML e-mal has a long association with spam and malware. Some of us prefer to not take the chance of being hit by malware.
Personally, I’d much prefer to get a text e-mail with links. If I’m interested in what’s being purveyed I’ll click on the link.
The great HTML debate!
Consider, if you will, automobiles. They cause irreparable harm to the environment and encourage us to be lazy. But to say we shouldn’t discuss emission-free vehicles solely because one feels we shouldn’t drive at all isn’t realistic. People want to and will drive cars, so we should try to make them better for the planet.
Now, apply that perspective to HTML emails. It comes down to this:
1) Many email-list subscribers want and ask for HTML formatted emails.
2) Many of our clients ask us to design/build HTML emails.
3) Most web designers can’t say “I absolutely refuse to build an HTML email for you, client.”
4) If HTML emails are being requested we need to build them, and in our need to do so we may as well do it right.
This debate can go on and on, but it’s not a practical discussion. Those wishing to avoid HTML emails can easily do so by not subscribing to a list that offers only that format or set up their email clients to only display plain-text. And those who want to receive HTML-formatted emails can and should be obliged by their email client.
So let’s focus on the real issue here: email clients should support web standards for HTML emails. Then every subscriber can decide for him/herself whether or not s/he wishes to receive them.
The real issue is _not_ whether e-mail clients should or shouldn’t support HTML. The real issue is that HTML was never intended for use as an e-mail protocol. Given that, why should an e-mail client be expected to support such a protocol?
The real issue is that HTML was never intended for use as an e-mail protocol
Is that the real issue? Given that every major email client already does support HTML, that would seem to be already answered.
There is no indication that support for HTML rendering is going away. This is just about improving the level of support to a consistent, reliable status.
That’s a bogus argument.
The human race is polluting the planet at an unprecedented rate. Does that mean we should continue to do so or that we should do so in a standardized and consistent way?
Phredd, are you seriously equating the pollution of an entire planet with the use of HTML in email?
@ Mathew - nope. Simply making the point that just because something is currently being done doesn’t mean it should be done on an on-going basis.
I think our differences lie in the perception of desirability of HTML e-mail. I don’t think it’s needed. You do. I guess you’re entitled to your wrong opinion. :-P
Phredd,
It doesn’t matter if you think HTML email is desirable, or if we think it is desirable, because it is going to be sent out anyway! That’s really the whole point.
The options are to do nothing, resulting in HTML email being sent with old tables and shoddy standards support.
Or to support this project, hopefully resulting in HTML email being smaller, more accessible and better designed.
There is no option which results in people not sending HTML.
Great project guys, hope it works
Support the project definitely, the clients have got to be improved for those that do the design, but why not give the choice - on a personal note I would rather have the choice, there are some things I want to see and other things I do not want to bother with ergoe I would rather have the choice
@Phredd
“Personally, I’d much prefer to get a text e-mail with links. If I’m interested in what’s being purveyed I’ll click on the link.”
Sounds like HTML to me, or do you mean “copy/paste them into the address bar of your browser”?
It’s just common sense...have standards and everything runs better no matter what the field. Like the saying goes.
“Are we all on the same page?”
Campaign Monitor have been working on a new project to promote better support of CSS and web standards among major email clients
From our Campaign Monitor and MailBuild customers we continually heard the same thing - why is it so hard to build a decent HTML email? The answer was not that nobody really cared, it was that the people who cared weren’t in a position to make any difference, or were not getting any support.
adsfxczvincluding Georg Stadler and Stefan Kremer who both sent in screengrabs.
freyfreyThanks to everyone who emailed us about Mobile Me, including Georg Stadler and Stefan Kremer who both sent in screengrabs.132cv
The options are to do nothing, resulting in HTML email being sent with old tables and shoddy standards support.
No more html emails
There is no doubt that there needs to be standards that need to be adheared to, the question is can we all work together to make this happen? I will help In anyway I can.
Thank you very much good work !
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I want to see and other things I do not want to bother with ergoe I would rather have the choice
The real issue is that HTML was never intended for use as an e-mail protocol. Given that, why should an e-mail client be expected to support such a protocol?
The human race is polluting the planet at an unprecedented rate. Does that mean we should continue to do so or that we should do so in a standardized and consistent way?!
Auto industry, great example, mark. Bye
Everything must have standards, without them, there is nothing but frustration. I also understand that HTML was never intended to support html, but times change and standards must keep up.
I don’t understand what the big deal is about HTML e-mails. I’ve always received them and they’ve never been a problem to me… can someone explain the issue??? I don’t get it…
I never heard of HTML email. Thanks for this info.
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There is no doubt that there needs to be standards that need to be adheared to, the question is can we all work together to make this happen? I will help In anyway I can.
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Very helpful information!
Thank you indeed!
Thanks for put forwarding new ideas and tips, appreciaited.
HTML emails are.... alright. As long as the formatting is nicely done, then it’s fine by me.
Like M. Wyner said, each subscriber should have the choice to receive HTML or not.
It’s really great of you to take care of email standards. Everyone seems to complain about the standards, but few seem to really care.
Thank you, it is very good and i like it very much 9Dragons money
Kickass..Thanks a ton for putting up such an initiative.
I think the user should always have an option, although I agree it is harder to design and program something that is compatible for both.
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Well done on this guys - I totally appreciate how much work goes into a project like this, you really do feel like you’re climbing a mountain whose top you will never reach. But you’ve delivered! Now the real work begins :)
You know what, you’ve even inspired me to at least investigate the possibility of moving away from my traditional Stalinist text only mailouts :)
good question. There are lots of browsers available in market most of them are free. there was a time when netscape was dominating the browser market and it charged money for using it. Internet explorer was launched by Microsoft and everything changed. now browsers are free. Mozilla firefox have lots of users but very less that internet explorer. New browser chrome is also launched by google which is good and is getting popular day by day. Now designing email standards for all the browsers will be complicated. It can be done for one or two popular ones. Can be done for all. But it would be like wasting resources.
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The only explanation that I have is that they wanted to give people the same formatting flexibility in writing email as they do in writing a Word document, and since the Office 07 document format is XML-derived, they figured it would not break badly enough to be completely unreadable in email clients other than Outlook 2007. That’s just my rationale though, I haven’t heard the official explanation.
(And if my rationale *is* correct, then it’s pretty stupid. If you need the flexibility of a Word doc, write a Word doc and send it as an email attachment.)
Thanks For this article.
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yes, agree! no html e-mails. From a marketing perspective (i.e. sending monthly newsletters to an existing customer base) html e-mails have a terrible conversion. CSS is the way to go.
As web designers, we’re used to designing for the particular constraints and capabilities of web browsers, and there’s a ton of great advice out there to help. HTML emails are a different story
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la légitimité, mais voici venu l’email standards project qui comme sont nom l’indique se veut le référenciel pour la standardisation des mails et tout partculièrement les mail au format html…
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i hope u will come again
New browser chrome is also launched by google which is good and is getting popular day by day. Now designing email standards for all the browsers will be complicated. It can be done for one or two popular
Everything must have standards, without them, there is nothing but frustration.i hope u will come again
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wellgencgurbet I also understand that HTML was never intended to support html, but times change and standards must keep up.
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HTML mail allows the sender to properly express quotations (as in inline replying), headings, bulleted lists, emphasized text, subscripts and superscripts, and other visual and typographic cues to improve the readability and aesthetics of the message, as well as semantic information encoded within the message, such as the original author and Message-ID of a quote
Les mail html ont eux aussi enfin leurs standards - Je ne sais pas exactement s’ils en ont la légitimité, mais voici venu l’email standards project qui comme sont nom l’indique se veut le référenciel pour la standardisation des mails et tout partculièrement les mail au format html..
I’ll stand up for no html emails (I would rather receive a text email than a html one).
er lavoro o per diletto, alla resa del codice HTML nei vari client email presenti sul mercato. Il progetto va a colmare un vuoto enorme nel pano…
Campaign Monitor have been working on a new project
yes, agree! no html e-mails. From a marketing perspective
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Let me preface this by saying I completely respect everyone’s choice for the email format they prefer to send and receive. I also understand that it probably wasn’t the original purpose of email to go beyond one-to-one plain text messaging. I really do. This is one of the biggest reasons we encourage everyone to include a plain text alternative whenever they send a HTML email.
The problem with HTML emails generally many are too big in size. I have one company who send me a html email newsletter of 8Mb average! This is also an issue along with correct structure.
thank you!!
By designing to web standards, and with the help of increasing browser support, we could reduce the time and money spent coding and make lighter, faster, more accessible websites.
I have to say that almost 100% of all html emails I receive are deleted. It’s purely cosmetic that emails are sent in html anyway. And furthermore, they would clog up my inbox. My colleague has had Outlook crash three times in the last year because he doesn’t delete like I do.
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Across the board web browsers have improved their support for web standards tenfold. The same can not be said for email clients.
Designing a HTML newsletter presents a minefield of potential errors that could result in some of your end-users seeing very strange and style-less results. It’s time for things to change.
Support the Email Standards Project !
Support it!
Email Standards have the potential to completely change the quality – and economic viability – of HTML email
NICE BLOG mail Standards have the potential to completely change the quality – and economic viability – of HTML email
I absolutely hate HTML email. I hate receiving it, I hate sending it. And there is no way you can make me actually create an HTML email message that displays well in all email clients.
that;s important
I’ve been using Campaign Monitor for a long time and I’ve just started working with them to improve the Drupal module I wrote a few months ago.
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We always prefer to send html based emails. Thats cool for to show any images or notices that formatted with bold, heading etc. saç ekimi visitiors receives frequently emails from us and wants these emails in html format.
In the mid-’90s, email experts strongly urged, for varied reasons, against using HTML formatting in email marketing messages. But those reasons have largely been made anachronistic by today’s technology and the overall evolution of the email channel.
Hi All
Notice that the two major corporate e-mail cients are listed under the clients that have “poor” “compliance”. Perhaps there’s a clue there as to the popularity of HTML e-mails in the corporate environment.
You do realize that a reasonable number of companies completely block all HTML e-mail from entering their networks, right? There’s a reason for that. HTML e-mal has a long association with spam and malware. Some of us prefer to not take the chance of being hit by malware.
Personally, I’d much prefer to get a text e-mail with links. If I’m interested in what’s being purveyed I’ll click on the link.
It`s Vrey Good Word
Web standards are the foundation that we use to build the Web. Unfortunately many still do not use Web standards properly, so many of these articles attempt to help people learn more about the benefits of using Web standards.
vLes mail html ont eux aussi enfin leurs standards - Je ne sais pas exactement s’ils en ont la légitimité…
people the same formatting flexibility in writing email as they do in writing a Word document, and since the Office 07 document format is XML-derived, they figured it would not break badly enough to be completely unreadable in email clients
From our Campaign Monitor and MailBuild customers we continually heard the same thing - why is it so hard to build a decent HTML email?
thanks dude
If you’ve ever coded an HTML email you’ll be aware that you have to throw all the things you learned at Web Standards school out of the window. Forget the following:
* CSS Support
* Tableless layout
* Keeping styles out of your markup
HTML-based email seems to be a mess, with different email clients supporting a different set (and sub-set) of web technologies such as HTML and CSS.
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standard is very important. If standard, the information will be correctly displayed.
Hope to see new updates coming soon!
Why is it so hard to build a decent HTML email? The answer was not that nobody really cared, it was that the people who cared weren’t in a position to make any difference, or were not getting any support.
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Documents marked with [Word] are only available in Microsoft Word format. If you don’t have Microsoft Word, a FREE Word reader is available from Microsoft.
Standardize it!!
Isnt that the easiest for users and developers?
I fully agree
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Campaign Monitor, our email newsletter manager of choice, will soon be launching a dedicated website to help fight the case for Web Standards support in HTML email.
I think firefox and IE should make proper standards so that layout should not effected
Thanks for this nice blog…
Documents marked with [Word] are only available in Microsoft Word format. If you don’t have Microsoft Word, a FREE Word reader is available from Microsoft. burun estetigi
We’d love to hear from you, so make sure you leave a comment or drop us an email, and signup for the email newsletter or RSS feeds to keep up to date. It’s time for Email Standards. yuz estetigi
was officially launched. Put simply, Email Standards have the potential to completely change the quality – and economic viability – of HTML email, much as [Web Standards](http://www.webstandards.org/…
HTML email? The answer was not that nobody really cared, it was that the people who cared weren’t in a position to make any difference, or were not getting any support.
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We all know that email clients aren’t consistent in their support of Web standards. Crafting an HTML email that renders correctly on most email clients is a delicate process which typically involves extra coding and a lot of guesswork. Up until now, we’ve begrudgingly accepted life this way… but a new effort aims to change that!
In other words I think what I’m suggesting is this isn’t really a web standards conversation. Its a marketing conversation. Its a conversation perhaps between web developers who might work for marketers who want to create HTML email brochures.
contact with the right people, and getting them all the support they can use to improve their email clients Replica bags
However, when it came to HTML emails, we felt like Marty McFly going back to 1998, still having to use structural tables instead of nice CSS.
That’s what the Email Standards Project is about: Making sure that people do care, that they do see why having standards support for email clients is important. And about making sure that our voices are heard by the people who can make a difference, the email client developers.
I Think standard fotmat html mailing,
Though I personally don’t think that HTML email is good but in some situations it may be useful.
Well done guys, we do need HTML standards for email.
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Email Standards Project Works to Improve Web Standards Support in Email Clients - Over the past few months, the fine folks at Campaign Monitor have been working on a new project to promote better support of CSS and web standards among major email clients (both offline and web-based programs). The new site for their Email Standards P...
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Les mail html ont eux aussi enfin leurs standards - Je ne sais pas exactement s’ils en ont la légitimité, mais voici venu l’email standards project qui comme sont nom l’indique se veut le référenciel pour la standardisation des mails et tout partculièrement les mail au format html...
In Praise of The Email Standards Project - A few days ago, the Email Standards Project was officially launched. Put simply, Email Standards have the potential to completely change the quality – and economic viability – of HTML email, much as [Web Standards](http://www.webstandards.org/…
Support the Email Standards Project - If you’re a web designer you know how hard it is to get your design to look perfect across all the different browsers available; Firefox, IE, Safari, Opera etc. When it comes to designing for html email, it can be even more nightmarish. Introduci...