Designing HTML Email in Notes 2

[RachelD]

The marketing people here want to begin doing targeted email marketing, and want to use HTML email to use it. We have no trouble sending HTML mail, but there are a few questions I have that I was hoping someone out there could answer.

Does anyone have any tips? I know that the email has to be created within a mail client so that it is encoded properly. Is there any way around this? Could HTML code be written in another program and brought in to display in Notes? If the email is created within Notes, what is the proper way to include images so that they are displayed in the proper place in the email?

Assuming the mail is sent in HTML and plain text, how are images treated for those recipients who can only receive plain text? Is there any way to ensure that the text message is not garbled with formatting code?

How about animation? I've received some interesting emails with animated graphics - any way to design this in Notes? Do you have to use Javascript?

If anyone can point me in the right direction it would be appreciated.

TIA
Rachel

 

[Roverfish]

You'll be surprised to know how easy this is, Rachel. Design a Web page the way you want with text layout, graphics, etc. Create a new Memo in Notes. Choose File->Import and select the HTML file you've created. Voila! There's your HTML email!

Notes will pull in the necessary images and ship them in the email. Mind you, if someone is using a proprietary client (read: AOL), it may MIME all the image files into one, but you'd have that problem no matter what.

As far as plain text recipients, I'd recommend creating two distribution groups (one for HTML and one for plain text) so that you can simplify the mailing process. If this isn't feasible, depending on the layout, the plain text folks will get some pretty funky text with a dozen image attachments.

As for animation, animated GIFs and Javascript work just fine, as will Flash and others if you have the plug-ins. My understanding is that if you can program it in a Web page, you can put it in the email.

Hope this helps.
"One fish, two fish,
Red fish, blue fish."

 

[RachelD]

Thank you - very helpful!

 

[hharris]

I am trying to do the same thing in Lotus or any mail program for that matter. I tried the suggested Import feature and it didn't work for me in Notes. Any suggestions as to what I am doing wrong or could it maybe be the way my Notes is set up>

 

[Roverfish]

Off the top of my head, there are a few reasons it might not be working for you, hharris. If you look under Mail and News in the User Preferences (File->Preferences), make sure the Internet Mail Format includes HTML. Also, be sure the cursor is in the body of the email before trying to Import...if the cursor's up in the Subject field, for example, it won't work. Since I don't go back to the 4.x days, I can't speak to that version, but since 5.x has a number of Web improvements, if you're using the older version this might affect you as well. Finally, if you're in a corporate setting and using Notes, it's possible that the form or database used for Memos has been altered, though I'd call this one a long shot.

If none of these work, let me know and I'll dig a little deeper.
"One fish, two fish,
Red fish, blue fish."

 

[wbh]

I tried this and the text comes through in the correct layout, but no images come through. How do you get the images to come through?

 

[Roverfish]

Notes can be funny in how it handles images. Many times it will put a placeholder where the image belongs. In these situations, the email will arrive in proper form (test this by sending an HTML email to yourself).

While I haven't had a problem with images in my emails, I have noticed that Notes often disregards the formatting that applied on the Web page. For example, if an image was to have appeared at 75x75 resolution, it may revert to its native resolution in the email.

Since this apparently is not your problem, the first thing to do is check your Location document (click on the the gear icon in your address book, then go to Locations and select the one you're using). The Advanced tab has a setting for loading images that should be set to "Always". The Mail tab's format for messages addressed to Internet addresses should be set to "Notes Rich Text Format". Finally, if any of these images utilize Javascript, make sure you've checked the Javascript option in User Preferences (see prior post).

While it doesn't deal with sending email, the following support document does deal with receiving HTML email:

http://support.lotus.com/sims2.nsf/...527b0e4ef06941f985256928006ea4c6?OpenDocument

Hope this helps. "One fish, two fish,
Red fish, blue fish."

 

[wbh]

Hey Roverfish,
Thanks for the input. the main problem I'm having is sending an HTML message to someone outside of Notes. the images don't come through. Is is a server setting? All my mail settings are correct.

 

[Roverfish]

Are the images not appearing for you or for your recipient? If the latter, obviously I'd look into their email client. If the former, yes, it's quite possible it's a server setting. The administrator has the choice on the mail server of choosing MIME or other formats as well as restricting attachments (which is technically how the images go through). I'd start with these first.

However, if you're saying that when you import an HTML file into a new Memo you're not seeing the images, the problem is with your local settings or set-up. When I do an import, I have the HTML file in the root directory and the supporting files (images, etc.) in a directory of the same name as the page except with _files appended to the end (for a good test, pick a simple Web page, save it as a complete page, then try to import it into a new Memo).

Let me know which of these problems it is and we can go from there. Hope this helps. "One fish, two fish,
Red fish, blue fish."

 

[Guest_imported]

Can anyone tell me if I create an html email in Outlook 2000 will it be available for people to look at in Notes too?

If not can anyone tell me the best way to create a 'whizzy' email that can be displayed in both outlook and notes?

Just to explain....I work for a newly merged company which uses both outlook and notes - oh what joy!

 

[Roverfish]

HTML email is interchangeable between the two, but there can be minor differences in how things appear. I've noticed that tables and at times justification (left, center, right) can be affected. The best way to find out is trial and error. Be sure your Notes settings allow for sending and passing along the HTML (just noticed that this workstation's client stripped out the test HTML I was sending to myself). Hope this helps. "One fish, two fish,
Red fish, blue fish."

http://www.siestaconsulting.com

 

[deeshubby]

I'm sending an HTML email from Outlook 2000 to Lotus 5.0
My HTML employs image tags which pull images off a remote server, that is, the images are not sent along with the actual e-mail, but are meant to be called up at the moment the user opens his message window. (using an absolute URL such as <IMG SRC=&quot;

http://www.mydomain.com/images/picture.gif&quot;>

My HTML email looks great when we send it around here on Outlook, but when I send to my client's Lotus account, although he gets all of the HTML formatting properly, he doesn't get the images- Rather, a broken image placeholder &quot;red box&quot;(similar to a normal browser that can't locate an image).

This seems slight different than what has been addressed so far.

 

[Roverfish]

Well, first off, I'd make sure the client's connected when viewing the email.

Assuming that's not it, check that the User Preferences for Internet mail format is set to 'HTML and Plain Text' in Notes. (see earlier post)

My current workstation has this setting and I get HTML emails just fine from companies like Dell and eWeek with absolute URLs in the source, so I know it can be done.

Beyond that, it's most likely a server or firewall issue. Notes uses some odd ports that most firewall administrators don't open. Let me know if this might fit his situation and I'll pass along the ports (don't have 'em handy at the moment).

Hope this helps. &quot;One fish, two fish,
Red fish, blue fish.&quot;

http://www.siestaconsulting.com

 

[deeshubby]

thanks - I ended up sending the HTML & images in a .zip file so that a Lotus user on the other end could broadcast the layout to his Lotus based company using the IMPORT->FILE method you described at the very beginning of this thread.

You're probably right about the firewall issue, but we're not gonna mess w/that route today...

very helpful thread!

 

[Roverfish]

And now we've come full circle. Or star... ;-)
Hope it helped. &quot;One fish, two fish,
Red fish, blue fish.&quot;

http://www.siestaconsulting.com

 

[Guest_imported]

What about hotmail-I tried your file-->import using lotus and it displayed great but when I looked at the same html email in hotmail it
pushed everything around and gave me code like the below:
(Embedded image moved
to file: pic18203.gif)
(Embedded image moved
to file: pic12253.gif)

 

[HFloyd]

Roverfish - you are quite an Expert!

Would you (or any other experts out there!) know how to perform this File> import > HTML from VBA?

I have a few Access apps that send emails through Lotus Notes, and it works fine for plain text, but there is no way to create &quot;Hotspots&quot; that show up as clickable links. If I create the links as HTML and &quot;import&quot; that file into a new Lotus Email (inside the Notes UI), the links do work.

What I would like to do is ammend my code to accept a filepath to import as HTML, then send out the resulting email.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Heather

http://www.floydinnovations.com

 

[APapini]

Hi,

My company has been trying to send HTML emails through Lotus Notes without success for many months, but thanks to your help, our problems are nearly solved.

I only have one small question. When I receive a test email, the spacing between paragraphs dissappears, whether I send it to another Notes user, or to a Hotmail account.

Do you know why this is, and how i can get the spacing back to make my emails look more professional?

Many thanks in advance for your help

 

[APapini]

Hi,

Ive been following all the advice here and have managed, using notes to create some nice looking HTML emails.

However, the problem I am having is regarding page breaks. I'll provide a little background. As my HTML skills are not too good, I have been creating the emails first in a Content Manager which we use to manage our website. I have then taken the HTML from this and imported it into Notes. It looks good electronically, but for some reason I, and several other people here, have failed to get the page breaks working. They work in Explorer, but not in Notes.

Unfortunately, to get this work signed off from up above, I need it to look good on paper and email.

Looking at the junk mail i receive, none of them manage to combine these two areas.

Does anyone have any ideas? I would be most grateful as this is now the only issue standing in the way of changing our email communication from Word attachments to better looking HTML based content.

Thanks