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need help with sophisticated html email design

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by jimredfield

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I sure get enough spam email with all sorts of bell's and whistles working when I open it, now I need to send an eye-catching email myself -- not spam -- to a small group of people. Is there a how-to resource out there about producing sophisticated html email (way above the "...For Dummies" level)? I'm no newbie with html design for web page development, but finding what works in an Outlook email doc is proving frustrating. Tnx in advance for any help offered. - Jim

4 replies

by dawgit

just use Open Office (openoffice.org) In it you can set up your HTML any way you want, and there are on-line Tutorials also. Of course, on the down side, you won't want to go back to any MS Office product. (oh, the pain...)

by bschaettle

Hi Jim,
Generating an HTML message in Outlook isn't too difficult. The trick is storing it in the right place. You need to save the webpage you build (the .htm file) in a folder called "Stationery" that Outlook uses to store it's stationery files. The other thing to do is to place all the graphics (.gif, .jpg) files you reference in the Stationery folder, as well.

Get yourself an HTML basics book, and build your message as a webpage in the Stationery folder. You can do this with any text editor, like Notepad, although there are plenty of better text editors out there. Note that any < img > tags in your message need to point to files that are also in the Stationery folder; this assures that they will be sent with the email.

If you want to see an example of what the HTML in an HTML message looks like, just right-click on the body of such a message and select "View Source." Bear in mind that the HTML for your message doesn't need to be nearly as complicated as what you might see when you do this.

When it's time to send your HTML message, go to Outlook and on the menubar, click on

Actions
-->New Mail Message Using
----->More Stationery...

This is how it works in Outlook 2000, anyway.

Good luck.

by jimredfield

bschaettle (sorry, couldn't extract a real name from that email name) -

Thanks for the Outlook html help. It was spot on. Will pursue shortly. Key was, I guess, where to assemble the pieces. Never would have thought of the stationary folder.

Tnx again.

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