> Hi, > you can find useful information here: > http://www.alistapart.com/articles/cssemail/ > > Mannequin > > Ian Fenn wrote: > >> Hi, >> >> My client is so pleased with their new standards-based website that they >> want to use the design as the basis of their monthly HTML email. I've >> embedded the stylesheet into the html source and made a few other changes >> and all seems well in Outlook and a few other email clients. >> >> The trouble I'm having is that Hotmail seems to remove all stylesheet >> references to external images so that global navigation disappears. Is there >> a way round this or do I have no choice but to code the page the >> old-fashioned way? >> >> All the best, >> >> -- >> Ian Fenn >> Chopstix Media Ltd >> http://www.chopstixmedia.com/
Ian, I'm sitting here, having just completed an HTML (well, XHTML/CSS) email announcement for a new re-design for a client. I use the following technique, which works in every e-mail client that I have tried. Have I tested every single one of them? No, of course not. But Hotmail and Gmail I have tried and this technique works well for those two as well as most e-mail clients. The trick is to use NO part of the webpage above and including the BODY tag. Hotmail and other web-based readers strip everything above the BODY tag, so you lose all of that. Take a look at my below example. (It's a bit wide in a browser, but in an e-mail client window it's fine. Just narrow your browser window a bit.) Look at the source to see the Trick: http://www.nlgjany.org/e_mail_announce/ The trick is to put the whole page in 2 Wrapper elements, and then put the CSS styles just inside the first Wrapper. No HTML tag. No BODY tag. NOTE 1: Hotmail and Gmail both don't display perfectly; Hotmail doesn't get floats correct sometimes, and Gmail doesn't display images by default - you have to turn that on in each mail. NOTE 2: That said, this mail technique will degrade nicely (as all XHTML/CSS should) in mail clients that are set to Not Display Complex HTML, or Not Display Images, or Not Allow Internet Access When Displaying Complex HTML. At worst, the reader should display simple HTML, showing Headers, Paragraphs and Lists, etc. Hope this helps! Regards, Kenneth Feldman -- KPFdigital.com Web Design & Hosting Made Easy Tel: 917-553-5582 http://www.KPFdigital.com ****************************************************** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help ******************************************************
