HTML email with Mail.app in Tiger

Submitted by Ivan on Sat, 2005-06-18 12:28

While there always were tricky ways to send HTML email with the Mail.app even before Tiger, but Apple finally made it easy with 10.4. It only takes a minute if you follow these steps below:

Compose you HTML email in the application of your preference.
Include all styling in the HTML page.
Upload it to your server (if you don't use images you don't need this step).
Open the page in Safari.
Press Apple(Cmd)-I.
The web page will open in Mail.app as a new HTML message.

The title of the page will be the subject, but you can edit it as any other element of the page if you need to do any final touches. Make sure to send a test to yourself to sort out any unexpected results.

Ivan's blog
Login or register to post comments

Good tip, but that's like

Submitted by Waleed (535 points) on Sat, 2005-06-18 13:13.

Good tip, but that's like cracking a nut with a sledgehammer.. Apple should have allowed the composition of HTML email in mail.app.. I used Mozilla before mail.app and it was so easy and nice to insert images, tables, lists, ..etc (seriously thinking of going back)

EDIT: commad-i seems to be a feature of the new Safari, I'm using version 1.3 (under 10.3.9) and it does not work.. :D

Waleed
www.waleedsgallery.biz

Always remember

Submitted by Jammo (0 points) on Sat, 2005-06-18 13:46.

Ivan, Superb tips as always!

Something to remember though, always try to offer a text-only version of the email if possible.

e.g - if you're using this technique to send out multiple emails, like a site mailing-list - have a text-only version online and supply a link to the text only version..

but heres where it gets interesting!

If you design your html page with no tables, and you use css for everything, the text-only email readers will automatically get a text only version (thanks to content and design being separate). Just remember to use h1/h2/h3 tags etc for your titles and headings. That way you're getting a user friendly email. Also, if you're using css, try to have your image paths in the css not your html. That way if your sending this out to people whose client 'sort of' supports html emails but strips out code and hides images (im thinking about the webmail client 'squirrel mail' for example). If you have the images in your css you're avoiding that problem where it saying 'image removed', and simply forces the user to have a cool looking text only email.

__
Goo