Stylesheets - How to use CSS in HTML e-mail ?

Author

How to use CSS in HTML e-mail ?

Unknown User

2005-01-22, 7:17 pm

Sometimes, people use CSS in HTML e-mail, and because of CSS priorities,
it distorts and messes up the whole page when the e-mail is viewed in a
webmail application.

Is it better to use styles in a <style> tag in the <head> section, or is
it even smarter to use inline styling to prevent inheritance to the whole
page outside the e-mail itself?

--
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
http://www.auriance.com
http://www.auriance.net

Lachlan Hunt

2005-01-23, 7:15 am

Unknown User wrote:
> Sometimes, people use CSS in HTML e-mail, and because of CSS
> priorities, it distorts and messes up the whole page when the e-mail is
> viewed in a webmail application.

That's is an unfortunate result of most (if not all) web based mail
systems being extremely poorly built and not designed to work with such
features. However, that just further emphasises that fact that plain
text e-mails are the only format that should be used.

> Is it better to use styles in a <style> tag in the <head> section, or
> is it even smarter to use inline styling to prevent inheritance to the
> whole page outside the e-mail itself?

Though, if you really must use HTML mail (I strongly advise you don't)
then this article might help.
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/cssemail/

--
Lachlan Hunt
http://lachy.id.au/
http://GetFirefox.com/ Rediscover the Web
http://SpreadFirefox.com/ Igniting the Web

Unknown User

2005-01-24, 7:20 am

On Sun, 23 Jan 2005 22:06:04 +1100, Lachlan Hunt <spam.my.gspot@XXXXXXXXXX>
wrote:

> Though, if you really must use HTML mail (I strongly advise you don't)
> then this article might help.
> http://www.alistapart.com/articles/cssemail/

Thanks :) Why not? In the beginning I used plain text e-mail using Opera's
e-mail client, but then every week I had suggestions from customers and
potential customers that it would look more professional for a web design
company to send nicely designed HTML e-mail. They said it made more sence
to select a web design company that sent a nice and beautiful proposal
rather than a company that claims to do 'design' and that uses dull plain
text.

We made some research and claimed to be looking for web design for a
natural products company, and our competitors did a quotation for us, not
knowing who we were, and they *all* sent nice HTML e-mail with their
identity and logo.

We decided to follow.

--
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
Discover Opera: http://members.surfeu.fi/jerkku/
http://www.auriance.com - http://www.auriance.net

Dave Anderson

2005-01-24, 7:21 pm

Unknown User wrote:
> On Sun, 23 Jan 2005 22:06:04 +1100, Lachlan Hunt
> <spam.my.gspot@XXXXXXXXXX> wrote:
>
>
> Thanks :) Why not? In the beginning I used plain text e-mail using
> Opera's e-mail client, but then every week I had suggestions from
> customers and potential customers that it would look more professional
> for a web design company to send nicely designed HTML e-mail. They said
> it made more sence to select a web design company that sent a nice and
> beautiful proposal rather than a company that claims to do 'design' and
> that uses dull plain text.
>
> We made some research and claimed to be looking for web design for a
> natural products company, and our competitors did a quotation for us,
> not knowing who we were, and they *all* sent nice HTML e-mail with
> their identity and logo.
>
> We decided to follow.

If you consider email to be primarily for advertising, using HTML email
*may* make sense for you. If you consider it to be primarily for
communication, sending HTML email is almost certainly a bad choice.

As a tool for communication, HTML email has a number of flaws including:

- since a very large fraction of all HTML email messages are spam, many
people automatically reject all HTML emails (even worse for successful
communication, most of them silently drop such messages rather than
explicitly rejecting them -- so the sender will never know that his
message was never seen)

- since accepting HTML email messages opens the door to all sorts of
abuses (ranging from the "invisible" images that spammers and others use
to determine if a message was actually read to malware payloads that may
trash your system), many people automatically reject all HTML emails
(while there are other ways of defending against these abuses, and other
ways for some of them to be delivered, rejecting all HTML messages is
very easy and very effective)

- many people use "traditional" mail user agents which don't understand
HTML email; they're not likely to change this since those MUAs are far
more capable at effectively working with large volumes of messages and
large stores of saved messages than the flashy new tools -- so the cost
*to* *them* of reading HTML messages is far greater than the perceived
value *to* *them*

Dave

Dr John Stockton

2005-01-25, 7:24 pm

JRS: In article <QaOdnXNNOYNI-GjcRVn-rA@speakeasy.net>, dated Mon, 24
Jan 2005 16:17:08, seen in news:comp.infosystems.www.authoring.styleshee
ts, Dave Anderson <dave@daveanderson.com> posted :
>
>If you consider email to be primarily for advertising, using HTML email
>*may* make sense for you. If you consider it to be primarily for
>communication, sending HTML email is almost certainly a bad choice.

Agreed.

>As a tool for communication, HTML email has a number of flaws including:

>- since accepting HTML email messages opens the door to all sorts of
>abuses (ranging from the "invisible" images that spammers and others use
>to determine if a message was actually read to malware payloads that may
>trash your system), many people automatically reject all HTML emails
>(while there are other ways of defending against these abuses, and other
>ways for some of them to be delivered, rejecting all HTML messages is
>very easy and very effective)

Now you have a false presumption, or an incomplete assertion, there. Or
more than one.

A simple plain text mail reader can accept the common HTML+text form;
the text will be readable, and the HTML non-infective.

A well-designed mail reader will have its own HTML engine, capable of
showing any HTML without allowing any unsafe exploits. I use a system
which approximates to that, for mail and news; HTML is safe for me, and
most HTML mail is displayed reasonably well.

The danger comes in reading HTML mail in a web browser or other viewer
which is susceptible to exploits of one form or another, either by being
incautiously written or by giving too much power to the received
material. Or, of course, both. It would not be hard to name an
example; there may be others.

Accepting and reading HTML is not necessarily unsafe.

Mind you, though I can receive and view HTML in perfect safety, I,
knowing that it is largely sent by vandals & incompetents, am very ready
to refuse to deal with it, unless it comes from a known or manifestly
interesting source.

--
© John Stockton, Surrey, UK. ?@merlyn.demon.co.uk Turnpike v4.00 IE 4 ©
<URL:http://www.jibbering.com/faq/> JL/RC: FAQ of news:comp.lang.javascript
<URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/js-index.htm> jscr maths, dates, sources.
<URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/> TP/BP/Delphi/jscr/&c, FAQ items, links.