Customize your email for the new Xoom, Kindle Fire, and iPad Tablets!

Tis the season over here at Email on Acid and we have tons of shiny, new devices on our desks just begging for a test drive. Fortunately for every computer lover on the planet, the Kindle Fire, Xoom, iPad, and iPhone are up front and center this holiday season and we are anticipating record sales from Amazon, Motorola, Apple and several more mobile & tablet carriers.

In this article we will show you how to target each device using the power of media queries...

5 Reasons you Should Always Validate your HTML Code when Developing Emails

Coding errors in web pages are one thing but errors in HTML emails are an entirely different story. So why is it so much more important? Here are 5 reasons why you should always validate your HTML when developing emails...

Emailology - the Science of Looking Good in the Inbox

Announcing the official launch of Emailology.org! This site is jam packed with tools and information for developing HTML emails including a boilerplate template, email client tips & tricks, a reference for universally supported HTML/CSS and a special character converter.

Email Standards - Can we Make a Difference?

We all know that there should be a universal standard for HTML and CSS but the fact is email clients are far less concerned with compliance than web browsers. None of their users are complaining about the way advisements are rendered in their inbox. So can we make a difference? It may be wishful thinking but our answer to that question is: Yes!

CSS Browser Extensions in HTML Emails

Here at Email on Acid, it's our number one priority to help you resolve email rendering issues as quickly and efficiently as possible. Our code analysis was specifically designed to process your HTML email and highlight individual lines of code that are not supported in each email client. We've recently added support for Mozilla, Webkit and Microsoft browser extensions.

Check out the results from all of our testing...

Convert Your Special Characters to HTML Entities

After our recent article regarding special characters in HTML emails, we've released another free tool that will convert all of your special characters to HTML entities. This will ensure that your characters render as intended no matter what Content-Type is imposed upon your email.

The Importance of Content-Type Character Encoding in HTML Emails

There have been many questions raised by our members on how email clients set the Content-Type within their HTML emails. As you may already know, the Content-Type plays a major role in the way an email will be displayed, especially with respect to special characters in non-Latin languages or when copying from a text editor like Microsoft Word.

In summary, all email clients ignore the Content-Type defined within your meta tag. Instead, they read it from the Content-Type value that is in the header of your email. The character type value within the header is automatically set by the server sending your email. This value can be changed but you would need direct access to the email server. The safest solution is to convert all of your special characters to HTML entities and we have created a free online tool to help assist you in that process.

Override the Font Resizing on the Android

In reading one of Campaign Monitor's more recent posts: Override the minimum font size on the iPhone and iPad, we had a hunch that this trick might also work on the native Android email client so we decided to investigate a little further.

Hexadecimal vs. RGB Values in HTML Emails

We had a recent question in our forums regarding which clients support hexadecimal vs. RGB values so I figured I would publish the results of my research to our blog as well.

In summary, it is best to avoid using rgb(255,0,0) values when developing HTML emails. Long hex (#F00F00), Short hex (#F00) and colors (red) are supported in all the email clients I tested.

12 Fixes for the Image Spacing in HTML Emails

Have you ever noticed the small spacing below images in Hotmail and Gmail? Every browser renders this spacing except for IE 7 and lower. Just after writing this blog post: The Mystery of Hotmail's Strange Image Spacing, and after lots of hair pulling, we realized that the culprit for this pesky occurrence was actually the DOCTYPE.

!DOCTYPE - The Black Sheep of HTML Email Design

As if email development wasn't already scary enough, it seems as though we are pushed even further into the HTML and CSS dark ages when it comes to the subject of DOCTYPE. After quite a bit of testing over the past year, we've have come to a very clear understanding of the DOCTYPE, it's effect on your layout and how being aware of it can save a lot of time and frustration.

Absolute vs. Relative References

It is important to note:  Our Email Test only supports absolute references to links and images embedded within your email.  So what's the difference between the two?  Hopefully this article will shed some light on the subject...