why won't the mailer pick up the css?

[pagetta]

we sent out an email flyer today and have been having major problems with the css. Some people are receiving the mail and it is not picking up the external style sheet at all and so looks naff naff naff!

Other people are receiving it with all the sty;es fine, but one major image is not appearing. The difference between this image and the others that ARE appearing is
1. Its a jpeg not a gif
2. It is put in using <td style="background-image:image.jpg;"> as opposed to <img src="....>

could anyone suggest why we might be having these issues? Thank you!

[Chris]

we've had that problem here. gmail is notorious for stripping out external CSS files. to combat this, we've started using inline styles, and this seems to have made the difference.

perhaps this approach may help you. altho, you do have to go back and declare each section you want a style attached to, which can be tedious...

[fivetone]

We use inline styles

[Weedy Lady]

I send mine the old fashioned way with straight html. The only problems I have are that some hotmail people don't see anything unless they click on "reply", and most webtv people see it but a few don't.

Sometimes I put these people on the plain text only list and sometimes I suggest they get a yahoo mail account. Yahoo shows everything. So far.

I don't think there is a really perfect way to send an e mail formatted brochure or ezine.

I use "some" css on the rest of the pages of my web site. (As much as I'm capable of doing).

I tried sending everyone a plain text only e mail a couple of times with a link to the web page with the full version but very few people clicked on the link, so I'm back to the fully formatted version which has much better results.

[chantra]

i use inline css as many email client or web based email service do not load external css.

I'm looking for a way to include the image directly into the mail as most of the time, image are not loaded by email clients.

[davidlenehan]

Unfortunately it would seem that there is no guaranteed way to get styles to display is all email clients. It is always better to use inline styles and this seems to work in most case. We try to use old fasioned <font> tags wherever we can.

If you are going to include a background image in a cell, it is better to use <td background="blahbblah.jpg">, but some mail readers will block out a background image no matter what, so if you really want a certain image to display, you need to find a way to place it on the page normally, without using it as a background image. You just have to keep trying different methods until you find a format that appears readable and consistent in the majority of browsers.

Remember, for best results, keep your HTML as simple as possible, and you will have better results.

Regards,
David Lenehan.
http://www.infacta.com

[TripleAught]

Originally Posted by pagetta

Other people are receiving it with all the sty;es fine, but one major image is not appearing. The difference between this image and the others that ARE appearing is
1. Its a jpeg not a gif
2. It is put in using <td style="background-image:image.jpg;"> as opposed to <img src="....>

When doing HTML mailings it's best to use an absolute link to your images.

[LTY83]

You might have already tried this but...

You might want to try using the full image path such as http://yourwebsite.com/images/imagename.gif instead of just the image name

if its in the email the code won't be able to find an image if its not reading the full path

[eacevedo]

Mark Wyner explains how to create compliant CSS formatted emails in his article “CSS and Email, Kissing in a Tree“. This is a great read and should answer most of your questions.

[pagetta]

cheers for the tips - that article was v useful thanks eacevedo - I would recommend reading that to anyone who sends out HTML emails!

I did have the full image path for the background image - it was only in hotmail that it was stripping it out and apparently hotmail seems to have a mind of its own when it comes to reading css - majority of our targets wouldn't be using hotmail anyhow so not a massive issue.

[Weedy Lady]

Thanks for that link. I have added the "one <div>" tag to my own e mail newsletter and maybe.......just maybe......that will help with the hotmail people who can't read anything.

As mentioned before, I do my newsletter in straight html, no css at all....but still was having problems.

One of the great things about these forums is that when one person posts a problem a lot of the rest of us get assistance also!

[4imc.com]

Another avenue to alleviate this issue altogether, which we do on most HTML campaigns it to host the Newsletter, HTML campaign in a file on your server. This will mainating CSS as it cannot be stripped, stop image stripping from Outlook or other programs. An added benefit of this it will allow you to review on your server activity, an "Open Rate" to the newsletter or campaign by the acknowledgement of hits to the page, if you have links in the newsletter or HTML message you will also be able to track conversion from the message to the landing page as the action from one to another will create a refer hit.

Good Luck

[4imc.com]

Another avenue to alleviate this issue altogether, which we do on most HTML campaigns it to host the Newsletter, HTML campaign in a file on your server. This will mainating CSS as it cannot be stripped, stop image stripping from Outlook or other programs. An added benefit of this it will allow you to review on your server activity, an "Open Rate" to the newsletter or campaign by the acknowledgement of hits to the page, if you have links in the newsletter or HTML message you will also be able to track conversion from the message to the landing page as the action from one to another will create a refer hit.

Good Luck

[madwizard]

Do not use:

<td style="background-image:image.jpg;"> as opposed to <img src="....>

but use this instead:

<td width="200px" height="200px" background="some_image.jpg">

It works fine for me. Remember if you have no text or nothing inside your <td></td> tags you need to specify width and height or else you want see the background image at all.

[Steelchord]

styles + tables = buggy.
styles + tables + email clients = nightmare.

out of inline styles vs. straight html vs. external css hosting, hosting the css file is definitely the way to go. But use the box model.

Don Forrester
Bits LTD.;
Accela LLC.