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...

Email Renderability

Market research has led us to the conclusion that most emails are NOT getting tested for renderability - after all, is that even a word?

When we initially started developing our Email Test, our primary goal was to make life easier for the email designers and developers of the world - those who are hired to produce a professional template or layout for their clients. After all, it seems as though making sure the email "looks good" is a responsibility which falls entirely on them and most often their customers assume it's an easy enough task to accomplish.

The fact is, aside from memorizing the web standards chart provided by Campaign Monitor, having 15 email accounts, installing 11 different desktop clients, and managing several virtual machines - ensuring renderability is much easier said than done. We won't even touch the subject of mobile devices and service plans. So how come it's so rarely talked about? And how many corporate advertisers are being tasked with ensuring the quality of their campaigns? After all, isn't it the corporate identity that's at stake here?

An Email on Acid Update

Our HTML Email Simulation is Getting Rave Reviews!

We are happy to report that our Email Test has been very well received since going live one month ago! In fact, we are averaging over 100 acid tests per day and we have several members helping us to identify key areas for improvement. Thanks so much for the awesome feedback and we want you to know that we are committed to supporting your requests!

People are Talking about our Email Testing Tool!

And so far the response has been great!

We are thrilled to announce that the Email on Acid buzz has begun! In the past week, we have found 6 published articles in various websites detailing current issues regarding the lack of HTML email standards, the challenges of testing, our solution, and a list of the features we offer.

We would like offer our sincere gratitude to those of you who have taken the time to publish us!

Simulating Errors in our Virtual Email Simulation

To avoid problems with your HTML/CSS email, we recommend that you test in the popular web browsers first.

When we initially built this tool for developers, we decided to include a "Code Analysis" feature which identifies which lines of code are not supported by each email client. This feature is not to be confused with a code validator. A code validator would identify issues with your HTML or CSS such as unfinished or invalid div and table elements.

Email Simulation - Web Browsers within Browsers

HTML email testing challenges...

As we faced off with the beta version of Email on Acid, we knew some challenges would be harder to deal with than others. The simple fact is that when our users run an email test in Firefox (for example) it is difficult for us to perfectly simulate a client like Outlook 03, Windows Live or Windows Mail because each of these examples are using an Internet Explorer engine to render emails. Unfortunately there is no clear solution to this issue aside from simulating some of the more obvious differences.

The Mystery of Hotmail’s Strange Image Spacing

The Case of a Hidden Escape Character...

It's official, there's an invisible ghost haunting Hotmail and it had us spooked for over 3 days! OK so we don't mean Friday the 13th scary, but still scary to a programmer who doesn't see it coming!

Default CSS in Web & Desktop Email Clients

It's important to beware!

It comes as no surprise that web clients use their own style sheets to render their pages. In the new version of Yahoo Mail and AIM Mail, emails are rendered inside an I-frame allowing for a fairly clean slate. However, in clients like G-Mail, Hotmail and Yahoo-Classic, they seem to make an attempt to reset browser defaults but several of their self-imposing styles are still carried over.

This issue may actually challenge the notion that you are always safe using the basics when it comes to tables and divs. In fact if you didn't know that you needed to overwrite certain styles using embedded or inline CSS, your end result may look much different than expected.

Outlook 2010 Email Test Results are In

Microsoft Not Playing Nice with Office 2010

It doesn't appear that Microsoft is going to play nice with HTML rendering in Office 2010. They are continuing down the '07 path by using Word to render HTML. Are you surprised? Honestly, we aren't.  We have recently received a beta version of Outlook 2010 and through our email tests we have noted the same rendering problems from Outlook 07.

Why Web Standards Matter for your Email

Until now, designing and developing HTML emails has been like trying to hit a moving target while blindfolded. Each of the email clients have different standards for how they accept and render standard HTML and CSS. nrfd7xvkgp