IN THIS RELEASE: We’ve Gone Mobile! New & Improved Code Validation Updated Test Archive & Control Panel Select Specific Clients for Testing Announcing the Final Release of Outlook 2010 Choose from 1, 3, 6, or 12 Month Payment Plans! We’ve Gone Mobile! Now you can preview your email on the iPhone and BlackBerry devices! Our iPhone simulation has built in features that allow you to slide, scale, rotate, and scroll exactly as seen on the actual device.  The interaction is so similar, you might even find yourself reaching up to your monitor to slide it around with your finger tips! Our new Blackberry simulation shows you how your email will look with and without a text alternative.  This helps drive home the importance of generating a text version of your email. VIEW A SAMPLE Convert your Embedded CSS to Inline in a Snap Optimizing for Gmail is a breeze with this handy feature! Now you can design your email using embedded styles and then export a fully optimized version with inline styles only.  This makes life so much easier, especially for long newsletters and complex email designs! New & Improved Code Validation Catch critical coding errors before they catch you. As an addition to our code analysis features, we now scan your email for critical coding errors before we process your Acid Test.  Syntax errors can dramatically affect the way your email renders in each client.  For example, if you have a stray </div>, the chances are likely that you will involuntarily interfere with a web based clients’ user interface. Coding errors directly affect the accuracy of our test result so if we find anything fishy we report it back to you, from there you can choose to continue with your simulation or you can abort it.  Don’t worry, we are not as nitpicky as the W3C only the big issues will draw a red flag. Updated Test Archive & Control Panel Subject lines and SPAM results, neatly organized. Now you can enter a subject line for each email so that it is easy to view and compare test results from your archive.  We also display your SPAM analysis results for tests that included SPAM reporting. Select Specific Clients for Testing Save time and help us preserve processing power! Now you can select from a list of email clients - this way you don’t have to run a complete test each time.  It’s a great time saver if you find yourself running the same test over and over to correct issues in a particular client. Announcing the Final Release of Outlook 2010 We’ve upgraded our Outlook 2010 screen capture servers to Microsoft’s production release of their Office 2010 suite.  For this client we generate screen captures because simulating the Word rendering engine from Outlook 2007 and 2010 proved to be impossible. We also provide two different code analysis results for Outlook 2007 and 2010. The first is your original code with highlighted discrepancies for what Outlook does not support. The second is Outlook’s interpretation of your original code. This is especially helpful for those who are brave enough to reverse engineer its conversion methods. Choose from 1,3,6, or 12 Month Payment Plans Now you can save by purchasing multiple months in advance. Our monthly payment plans include unlimited testing in all of our supported email clients, mobile devices, and SPAM analysis results! *Subscriptions are renewed every term until your plan is canceled. Feel free to visit us online to learn more about our pricing and cancelation policies.

Thank You Message

Thanks to everyone who has continued to support and promote Email on Acid. We are very happy with the feedback that we have received so far and we will to continue to add the features that our members are asking for. If you have any additional requests, please fill out our contact us form.

Cheers and happy testing!

Email on Acid

Email Client Support

Before we ran our test we knew a couple of clients would not display the API fonts. Understandably Gmail would not load the @font-face rule because it doesn't support embedded or linked styles. With the little support that MS Word provides for HTML standards we had a good feeling that Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010 would not display the Font API. We also knew that the IPhone would not display the custom fonts because Google's Font API does not support SVG - Scalable Vector Graphics. With that said the Font API will also not be displayed on the iPad, iPod, or Andriod devices.

We found it very interesting, however, that there is little or no support for the CSS @font-face rule in most email clients. Only 1 client out of 17 supported Google's Font API. This comes as a surprise to us because most email clients use browser based rendering engines to display HTML email. Due to Apple Mail's HTML/CSS support track record we figured that it would surely support font embedding. Here is the list of clients we tested and their support for @font-face:

Desktop Clients	Result
Apple Mail
Entourage 2008
Entourage 2004
Outlook 2010
Outlook 2007
Outlook 2003
Outlook Express
Live Mail
Windows Mail
Thunderbird 2
Thunderbird 3
Web-based Clients	Result
AOL Web
Gmail
Hotmail
Yahoo (New)
Yahoo (Classic)
Mobile Clients	Result
iPhone

Our Conclusion: Use at your Own Risk

Although Google's Font API is a great resource and can make your job easier when designing web sites we highly recommend against using this API in HTML emails. Based on our test results there is almost no support and the one client that does support it has a very small share of the email client market. However, if you do decide to use this API we strongly suggest using a CSS font stack with the referencing API font.

	Email Inbox - Now you can send a test email directly to your Email on Acid account! From there you have the option to run a free test or purchase credits and preview your email in all 16 of our supported clients!
	Outlook Express - We've added Outlook Express to our list of supported email clients.
	Analysis Summary - Now when you run an email test, we present an overview for how your code stacked up against each email client. Though we still recommend that you preview your email in each client, this analysis summary will show you exactly where problems might be occurring.
	Send your Results to a Friend - Now you can forward your results to a customer or friend for final review and approval.
	Website Translation Tools - Thanks to Google, you can now translate our website into just about any language! This option is now in the footer of every page in our website.

Coming (Very) Soon

Here is a list of features that you can expect to see very soon! Outlook 2010 Beta Spam Analysis & Reporting MobileMe, Excite, MySpace Mail, and Lotus Notes 6,7 and 8! Mobile Device Simulations The Option to Convert Embedded to Inline CSS Link Verification

Thank You Everyone for your Ongoing Support!

Thanks to everyone who has continued to support and promote Email on Acid. We are very happy with the feedback that we have received so far and we will to continue to add the features that our members are asking for. If you have any additional requests, please fill out our contact us form.

Cheers and happy testing!

Email on Acid

In taking into account the complexity of testing your email, we must first consider the most popular email applications used today.

Desktop Email Clients

Each desktop client uses an embedded rendering engine in order to display your email. In order to control potential spam and spyware threats, each client then sets restrictions on supported HTML, CSS and scripting elements. Popular desktop clients include:

	Outlook 2003 IE 6,7 or 8 Engine*		Lotus Notes 6, 7 Rich Text View - similar to Wordpad
	Outlook 2007 Microsoft Word Engine		Lotus Notes 8 IE 6,7 or 8 Engine*
	Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0, 3.0 Firefox Engine		Windows Live (Hotmail) Client IE 6,7 or 8 Engine*
	Apple Mail (aka Mac Mail) Safari Engine		Entourage 2004, 2007 Internet Explorer 5 for the Mac
	Windows Mail IE 6,7 or 8 Engine*

* The version of IE that is used to render your email depends on what the user has installed on their local machine.

Web Based Email Clients

Web based email clients present an entirely different challenge. Since users can open their web based email from any of the popular web browsers, we have to focus less on the embedded "rendering engine" and more on how your email 1.) looks in every popular web browser and 2.) gets interpreted by each email client.

For example: Gmail sets very strict restrictions on embedded CSS, whereas Hotmail uses an outdated doc type which may alter the way your images and text will render.

As if that wasn't enough, your email will render inside the Gmail, Yahoo, and Hotmail user interface.  Therefore, you must compete with their default CSS. AOL, on the other hand, uses an iframe to display your email.

Popular Web Based Email Clients:

The most popular web browsers:

As you already know, each of these web browsers vary when it comes to following W3C standards, rendering coding errors, and displaying blocked images, ALT, and TITLE tags.

Other big contenders include:

• Myspace Mail
• Opera Mail
• Lycos Mail
• Excite Mail

In the end, there are a multitude of different ways in which your email might be received which makes testing much more difficult than testing a standard web page. So the question is:

What is the best strategy for testing your email to ensure it will render correctly in all of the popular email clients?

Here's our recommended approach:

1. Test your email in each of the popular web browsers, including older versions of Internet Explorer. Then, if possible, test on your iPhone or one of the iPhone simulators listed below.
2. Using Firefox, log into your Email on Acid account and run a simulation of your email in the top 15, most popular email clients. Make sure you are satisfied with the way your email will render in each client by using our code analysis feature.
3. Then open Internet Explorer and log into your Email on Acid account once again. Find the email test in your archive and preview the email in each client there as well.

Have you had enough yet? No?
Well, for the hard core testers out there, let's enter into the realm of mobile device email...

Testing HTML Email on Mobile Devices

To make matters even more complicated, some users may use their mobile devices to retrieve their email. Although users are more likely to use the email application that comes with their device operating system, others may prefer to check their web based email through their handheld web browser. There are currently 40 different handheld applications for web browsing.

Here is a list of popular mobile device operating systems:

• Palm OS (aka Garnet or Cobalt) - Made by PalmSource
• Windows Mobile (aka Pocket PC, Pocket PC Phone Edition, and Smartphone) - Made by Microsoft and built on the Windows CE operating system. Applications are Internet Explorer and MS Reader. E-mail program is from the Pocket Outlook Suite and is similar to Outlook (assuming version 03).
• Blackberry OS
  
• Symbian
• Android - Acquired by Google and built on a Linux based platform
• iPhone OS (aka X iPhone or OS X) - Made by Apple Inc. and built on a Mac OS based platform. The standard web browser is Mobile Safari

Popular Mobile Browsers

• Mobile Safari (comes standard on the iPhone OS)
• Opera Mini (can be installed on any mobile device and there are an estimated 30 million active users)

The good news is that the iPhone has excellent support for HTML/CSS web standards and it is estimated that an average of 2-4% of your potential readers are receiving their email on this device.

Another silver lining to developing emails for mobile devices is that most revert to the attached text version, that is why it is best to embed a link at the header of your text version to a landing page which contains the HTML version of your email. More often than not, that link will launch the standard web browser within the device.

It is our goal to provide simulations for mobile devices in the future. But in the meantime, here are a few online and windows based simulation tools that might help you on your way:

Web Based Mobile Simulators

• dotMobi Online Emulator - mTLD has an online emulator that you can use to quickly see what your site will look like on a common phone
• Opera Mini - a simulation of Opera's popular J2ME browser
• Testiphone - Simulates iPhone browser
• Iphonetester - Also simulates iPhone browser

Windows Based Mobile Emulators

• WinWap Smartphone Emulator
• Microsoft Pocket PC Emulators
• Openwave's Browser Simulator
• Nokia Browser Simulator - this simulator simulates a generic Nokia phone and WAP gateway
• BlackBerry Simulator - multiple different BlackBerry simulators
• Yospace SmartPhone Emulator - a versatile emulator that can display multiple phone instances at the same time
• iPhone Simulator - bundled as part of the iPhone SDK. You'll need to purchase a Mac to run the SDK
• Android Emulator - the Android SDK includes a mobile device emulator. The Android emulator mimics all of the typical hardware and software features of a typical mobile device, except that it can not receive or place actual phone calls
• Palm Pre Emulator - the Mojo SDK from Palm include a Palm Pre Emulator. You can download the SDK for free (requires email registration)
• BREW Emulator - the BREW SDK includes a mobile device emulator. It does not however emulate a handset's hardware. The BREW application is instead compiled to native code and linked with a x86-compatible BREW runtime library.
• MobiOne - iPhone emulator and Palm Pre emulator
• Windows Mobile

We have had a few people ask us how they can use our email testing simulation tool if they do not have access to their URL or HTML code. If you are an email marketer and you are using a third party service or application to create and manage your email campaigns, this article is for you.

Send Your Email Directly - Option 1 (Preferred)

The best way to view your email in all of our supported clients is to send your email directly to your Email on Acid account.

To do that, follow these easy steps:

1. Place your Email on Acid username in the subject line.
2. Verify that the body contains your HTML email.
3. Send your email to myinbox@emailonacid.com.

It is recommended that you do not forward your email for testing.  Many email applications will re-format your email when you forward it so it is best to send your original email directly from your service provider. If this option is not available to you, feel free to continue reading.

Retrieving HTML Source - Option 2

Most email services like Vertical Response or Constant Contact have a built in feature that allows you to preview your email before you send it. Even if this preview has a header and footer, it is best to copy the source from this location because it is unfiltered. In other words, it hasn't been sent through an email application that may have sifted out or converted the original HTML code.

If your email service provider has a preview capability, follow the steps below:

1. Using IE or Firefox, simply right click anywhere on the preview page (but not over a link or an image) and select "View Page Source" (in Firefox) or "View Source" (in IE)
2. This will open a text file, simply cut and paste all of the HTML code into the Email on Acid HTML text box and run the test
   Shortcuts: (In Windows: Control A will select all the copy, Control C will copy the source into your clipboard, select the textbox and Control V will paste contents into the textbox)

Retrieving HTML Source - Option 3

Most email service providers have a "send test email" feature. This would allow you to send a test email to yourself in order to preview it before sending out your final email campaign. When you are ready, send a test email to your personal account then find the email application you are using in the list below and follow the steps to extract the HTML code:

Gmail

1. With Gmail, open the desired message.
2. Click on the down arrow next to "Reply"
3. Now click "Show original"
4. This will open a new window with the source code, cut and paste all of the code into the Email on Acid HTML text box and run the test
   Shortcuts: (In Windows: Control A will select all the copy, Control C will copy the source into your clipboard, select the textbox and Control V will paste contents into the textbox)

Hotmail

1. Open Hotmail and check the email in question (don't open the email)
2. Then right click on the message and select "View message source"
3. This will open a new window with the source, cut and paste all of the code into the Email on Acid HTML text box and run the test
   Shortcuts: (In Windows: Control A will select all the copy, Control C will copy the source into your clipboard, select the textbox and Control V will paste contents into the textbox)

AOL (in Firefox)

1. With AOL open and your message selected, right click over your email layout (do not right click when hovering over images or links)
2. In the dropdown choose "This Frame > View Frame Source"
3. This will open a notepad document
4. From there, cut all of the contents from the notepad document and paste it into the Email on Acid HTML text box and run the test
   Shortcuts: (In Windows: Control A will select all the copy, Control C will copy the source into your clipboard, select the textbox and Control V will paste contents into the textbox)

Yahoo (in Firefox)

1. With Yahoo open and your message selected, right click over your email layout (do not right click when hovering over images or links)
2. In the dropdown choose "This Frame > View Frame Source"
3. This will open a notepad document
4. From there, cut all of the contents from the notepad document and paste it into the Email on Acid HTML text box and run the test
   Shortcuts: (In Windows: Control A will select all the copy, Control C will copy the source into your clipboard, select the textbox and Control V will paste contents into the textbox)

Outlook 03

1. With Outlook03 open and your message selected, right click over your email layout (do not right click when hovering over images or links)
2. In the dropdown choose " View Source"
3. This will open a notepad document
4. From there, cut all of the contents from the notepad document and paste it into the Email on Acid HTML text box and run the test
   Shortcuts: (In Windows: Control A will select all the copy, Control C will copy the source into your clipboard, select the textbox and Control V will paste contents into the textbox)

Outlook 07

1. With Outlook07 open and your message selected, right click while hovering over the background of your email
2. In the dropdown choose "view source" - (if you right click over images or text you will not see the option to view source, try making your window larger and right click over the background or below the footer, even if it is white).
3. When you click "view source" - it will open a notepad document
4. From there, cut all of the contents from the notepad document and paste it into the Email on Acid HTML text box and run the test
   Shortcuts: (In Windows: Control A will select all the copy, Control C will copy the source into your clipboard, select the textbox and Control V will paste contents into the textbox)

Thunderbird 2.0 and 3.0

1. With Thunderbird open and your message selected, go to "View > Message Source"
2. That will open a text editor with the html source, from there, cut and paste all of the code into the Email on Acid HTML text box and run the test
   Shortcuts: (In Windows: Control A will select all the copy, Control C will copy the source into your clipboard, select the textbox and Control V will paste contents into the textbox)

Mac Mail

1. With MacMail open and your message selected, go to "View > Message > Raw Source" from the menu
2. That will change your email to the html source, from there, cut and paste all of the code into the Email on Acid HTML text box and run the test
   

Entourage 04 and 08

1. With Entourage open and your message selected, go to "Message > Source" from the menu
2. From there, cut and paste all of the code into the Email on Acid HTML text box and run the test
   

Windows Live Mail

1. With Windows Live Mail open and your message selected - right click on the message in your inbox and choose "Properties"
2. Then select the "Details" tab
3. Click on "Message Source"
4. This will open a popup window with your source HTML
5. From there, cut and paste all of the code into the Email on Acid HTML text box and run the test
   Shortcuts: (In Windows: Control A will select all the copy, Control C will copy the source into your clipboard, select the textbox and Control V will paste contents into the textbox)

Windows Mail

1. With Windows Live Mail open and your message selected - right click on the message in your inbox and choose "Properties"
2. Then select the "Details" tab
3. Click on "Message Source"
4. This will open a popup window with your source HTML
5. From there, cut and paste all of the code into the Email on Acid HTML text box and run the test
   Shortcuts: (In Windows: Control A will select all the copy, Control C will copy the source into your clipboard, select the textbox and Control V will paste contents into the textbox)

Note: Never try to forward your test email for purposes of extracting the source code. Most email applications will reformat your HTML email again when you forward it. Therefore, if you cut and paste code from a forwarded email, you will not get an exact simulation of how your original email would have rendered in each of the popular email clients.

Our API is completely customizable and you can utilize any or all of the features provided. Such features include the email preview in any of the email clients we support, our code analysis, the plain text generator, image blocking, and future spam analysis tools.

We currently offer two distinct integration options:

	Reseller Program The first is a reseller program designed to help you generate additional revenue from your current member base. As a reseller, you can mark up our flat rate per scan as much as you want. The flat rate is discounted based on monthly volume. Resellers have the option to private label or, for a discounted rate, they may use the existing Email on Acid brand header and footer.
	Monthly Subscription The second integration option is a monthly subscription allowing for unlimited email tests (or scans). This program is designed to help you provide a value added service to your existing members. Monthly API subscribers pay a royalty fee based on volume of scans per month.

At this time, we are open and flexible regarding our API and would be happy to discuss the best possible integration solution for you. You may even consider using a blend of the two options if it better suites your pricing model.

API Technology

Our application programming interface was built using RESTful Web Services. Therefore, when you send a request to our system, we will return a result in XML format. From a technology standpoint, you have complete control over the way you display, archive, and track each API request.
We also provide you with our standard user interface and a framework for the look and feel. However, this is not a requirement - if you want, you can use your own interface design and user interaction tools for displaying email simulations.

Usage Ideas

Depending on the products and services you offer to your customers, there are many ways you might wish to integrate our email preview tools.

Automated Email Service Applications

Your users can preview the way their email will look in the most popular clients within seconds. Our text generation facility can generate a plain text version of each submitted email, you could then allow your customers to edit the text version as they see fit. Some email service providers have also shown interest in our future spam analysis tools, for more information, check out our coming soon section.

Enhance your Corporate Workflow

If you require your customers to provide you with their own custom artwork and html, our test is a great way to help you save time and money. Private label our interface and send it to your clients, this will allow their developers to utilize the code analysis features to lock down their HTML emails before sending you their final artwork. Do what you do best and avoid having to train external developers on the ins and outs of html email design and development.

HTML Email Testing Services and Client Approval

If you currently test your customers' html emails for them, this tool is a great way to save time and money. Avoid having to send a test to 15 different email accounts and 4 different operating systems. With Email on Acid, you can do it all in one place. We also plan on adding a feature that lets you forward the final results to your clients for approval.

Design Templates

If you are currently in the business of selling email design templates, our instant HTML email simulation is a great way to give end users a preview of how each template will look across all the major email applications before making a purchase.

Auto Responders and CRM Applications

Your auto responder or CRM application may have built in features which allow your customers to control the look and feel of their dynamic content emails. You can send your dynamic content through our API for testing and previewing purposes.

Spam Testing & Deliverability Reporting Services

If you provide automated spam testing or deliverability services, you are already providing extremely important email test results to your customers. Why not add a simulation of how their email will render across each of the popular email clients?

Desktop Applications

Last, but not least, you could re-create the functionality of our web-based application as a Windows or OS X desktop application for purposes of reselling to a larger user group.

Email Marketing Web Sites

If you currently have a web site or blog geared toward email marketing, you can use our email preview API to generate revenue from your existing readers. At this time we do not offer an affiliate commission program but we would be happy to entertain the idea upon request.

If you would like to learn more about our API pricing and technical requirements, please fill out this online request form and we will contact you promptly.

After much anticipation, we are proud to announce that our online email testing tool is no longer in Beta! Our new and improved email simulation now includes the following enhancements: Outlook 07 Email Simulation Upgrades - We now provide a rendered screenshot for Outlook 07 along with Microsoft's translation of your original code. Enhanced Image Blocking - Now our test provides an exact simulation for image blocking. Email Test Archive - You can now run a test in Firefox, then login using IE and preview the same test by using our archive feature. G-mail, Yahoo-Classic, and Hotmail Simulation Enhancements - We have included special rules to accommodate for the translation procedures used by G-mail, Yahoo-Classic and Hotmail. Default Style Sheets - We have refined our methods for keeping our default email client style sheets up to date.

Email Testing is now Supported in the Top 5 Web Browsers!

New Pricing Options for Testing your Emails

Unlike all the other email clients, Outlook 07 doesn't just ignore certain elements, properties, and values. Instead, it completely translates your html and CSS into its own, choppy version of your original code. In many cases it translates divs to paragraphs, ULs to a series of spans, and it spits out a whole lot of unnecessary CSS of its own.

For that reason, our code analysis works a little differently for Outlook 07. Instead of displaying your original code, we provide the "translated" version. We then highlight lines of code that are not supported such as floats, forms, and background images.

We invite you to give it a test run, and by all means if you come across a discrepancy please feel free to report it to us. Although we feel as if we have run a million tests by now, Outlook 07 has forced us to completely re-design our database structure and it would really help us to know when and where problems are occurring so that we can continue to make improvements.

Email on Acid Release 1.0 is Coming Soon!

Not only have we improved our Outlook 07 simulation, we have also generated a series of diagnostic tests that we can run through each of our supported email clients to ensure that our test results are on point. As you know, there are thousands of HTML element, property, and value combinations to account for and we sincerely appreciate your patience as we continue to lock down our beta version.

Acid Test Result Discrepancies

The first usage of the term "discrepancy" is designed to identify exactly which lines of code are not supported for each email client.

A discrepancy may or may not alter the final layout in a way that is unpleasing and in many instances, a programmer may use certain CSS properties or HTML attributes that work for a majority of email clients but not for others. In fact, in certain circumstances they are forced to use code that is not supported in all clients just so that their design will render correctly across the board. When certain properties or elements are not "supported" the email client in question simply ignores that code. Therefore, do not confuse the term "discrepancies" with "code errors."

Outlook 07 is the only email client that completely translates your code. This is because Outlook 07 is using a Microsoft Word engine which limits the use of CSS. Therefore, the Email on Acid code analysis result for Outlook 07 is actually their interpretation of the code you submitted.

In summary, if you are satisfied with the way your simulation looks, don't worry too much about reported discrepancies. This feature was designed for HTML/CSS developers so that they can distinguish what works and what doesn't. However, if you do see undesirable spacing or text sizing in the simulation, be sure to bring it up to your designer and/or email service provider.

"Report a Discrepancy" Feature

The second usage for the term "discrepancy" is intended for customer service and support. If you run an acid test and find inconsistencies between our simulation and actual email client results - we want to hear about it!

When you click on this button you are taken to a page where you can share your comments regarding the discrepancy. Please note: there is no need to re-submit your code or URL because we archive the email in question in an effort to make this process easier for our users.

Remember: When using web based email clients (such as Hotmail, AOL, G-Mail, or Yahoo) recipients can receive your email using any of the popular web browsers (IE, Firefox, Opera, Chrome, or Safari). Our acid test is designed to display web email client results as it would appear in the web browser you are running your test in. Therefore if you find a discrepancy in a web based email client, please make sure you are comparing your results in the same browser.

In summary, email application providers are always improving their product so what works today might not work tomorrow and vice versa - especially in web based email clients or in beta desktop clients. We are constantly trying to improve our product and we test email clients regularly for CSS support and compliance, however if you notice inaccurate results, please don't hesitate to use this feature!

We hope this article has helped to clarify these terms, if not, please be sure to give us your feedback.

Using Absolute References (supported)

An Absolute Reference provides the complete http address, the directory path, and the file name. For instance, if you had a file named "logo.gif" in a directory called "images" under the URL "http://www.emailonacid.com" you would link to it as follows:

http://www.emailonacid.com/images/logo.gif

In html context, this might appear as:

<IMG ALIGN=bottom src="http://www.emailonacid.com/images/logo.gif">

Absolute references must also be used inside embedded or inline CSS.

Using Relative References (unsupported)

A Relative Reference provides a partial http address in the form of a fragment of a full directory path. Keep in mind that by default, if no server name or path is specified in html, the file reference defaults to the current directory. If you are publishing files on the web, the default would be any file within your www directory.

To use the example above, you would specify the link as

/images/logo.gif

In html context, this might appear as:

<IMG ALIGN=bottom src="/images/logo.gif">

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 machines with different operating systems - ensuring renderability is much easier said than done. We won't even touch the subject of mobile devices and service plans. So why is this subject so rarely talked about? And how many corporate advertisers are being tasked with ensuring the quality of their email campaigns? After all, isn't the corporate identity at stake here?

Even when you run a Google search for "email testing" you will find tons of information on how to test things like target markets, messaging, incentive, subject lines, timing, and destination pages. It's almost as if email marketers are under the assumption that since it looks good in the web browser it will look good everywhere. Unfortunately this assumption couldn't be further from the truth.

In an effort to ensure the quality of our Acid Test result, we ran several high profile corporate email campaigns through the test. We won't name any names because we have no interest in throwing any of those hard working designers under the bus. But we found that 8 out of 10 emails had glitches* and where most likely not tested in most of the popular clients**. This research only goes to show that a majority of custom designed email campaigns are not being tested for renderability.

Maybe its time to spark up a conversation in an attempt to take some of the burden off of the developers themselves...

*unusual spacing between images, unintentional centering, table spacing, missing background colors to replace unsupported background images

** AOL 9, Entourage 2004, Entourage 2008, Gmail, Hotmail, Windows Live Mail, Windows Mail, Mac Mai , Outlook 2003, Outlook 2007, Thunderbird 2, Thunderbird 3 - Beta, Yahoo Classic, Yahoo Mail

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!

We've also been published on a few French websites! We are thrilled to see that this acid test transcends language and that we are resolving a genuine hardship worldwide. Read more...

As expected, however we have run into a few snags which we are working diligently to resolve. Here are a few articles we've posted identifying some of our trials and tribulations during the month of August:

• Default CSS in Web & Desktop Email Clients
• The Case of a Mystery Escape Character in Hotmail
• Simulating Web Browsers within Browsers
• Simulating Errors in our Email Acid Test
• Outlook 07 Code Analysis Update

We are thrilled to announce that the Email on Acid buzz has begun! In the past week, we have found 7 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 extend our sincere gratitude to those of you who have taken the time to publish us! Here is a list of blog posts we have found so far:

• Ghacks.net: Email Marketing Software Email on Acid
• Efinditnow: Email Marketing Software Email on Acid
• Instant Fundas: Email on Acid: Newsletter Testing and Simulation on Virtual Email Clients
• 1Theme: Email Marketing Software Email on Acid
• Email Marketing Insider: Email Marketing Software On Acid

We've also been published in a few French websites! We are very pleased to see that our acid test and the challenges that it helps to resolve can transcend language. Here are the English translated versions of those articles:

• La Ferme du Web: Email Acid - Testing the integration of emails on different mail clients
• Oxynel, Blog Communication: Top 8: Solutions you need to know!

This much appreciated press goes to show just how tedious it has been for email marketing firms and developers alike to ensure the quality and deliverability of a professional email marketing campaign for their customers. In fact, several professionals have admitted that they don't currently test their email in each of the most popular email clients due to the challenges involved.

We genuinely hope that our product can continue to offer a much simpler approach to testing, resolving issues, and having the peace of mind that your email will render correctly no matter what your readers are viewing it in.

At this time, we would like to re-iterate that we are still thoroughly testing the beta version of our email test. We hope to go live with our first official product release by October 2009. In the meantime, please don't hesitate to point out discrepancies between our test results and actual email client displays as it will only help us to further refine our product for the future.

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 an email validator. A code validator would identify issues with your HTML or CSS such as unfinished or invalid div and table elements.

It is very difficult to "simulate" errors in our acid test exactly the way they might appear in each desktop email client because many of them are using different engines. Each engine has its own rules for handling errors. When running our Email Acid Test, you are using a single web browser with its own rules for rendering errors.

In the future, we may choose include some type of code validation tool so that our Code Analysis not only identifies unsupported CSS but it also highlights errors in your code. However, for the short term, please test your email in the following order:

Step1.) First, test your email in all the popular web browsers (IE 6, 7, 8, FF, Safari, Opera, and Chrome)
Step 2.) Then run your email through our Email Test using Firefox. For even better end results, re-run the Acid Test in IE as well.

Please note: at this time, we cannot be held responsible for discrepancies if your code is invalid. If you find a possible discrepancy, be sure to test your email in various web browsers before submitting a ticket.

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 a 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.

One obvious difference is the support for certain CSS styles such as the generic "font" property.

Firefox does not support this particular property but IE does. So if a designer where to create their email and only test in IE, their fonts would look exactly as intended. It may also look fine inside the for-mentioned IE desktop clients. But if that developer where to run our email test using Firefox, it wouldn't be an exact simulation - unless we where to add special rules to parse that property so it renders correctly in Firefox.

Other, more complicated issues arise when our users submit code that is full of HTML or CSS errors. As we all know, each of the web browsers have different rules for handling issues like extra table cells and missing close tags. In the end, we may have to implement some type of code validation tool that identifies key issues before running the acid test. For more on that subject - check out our blog post Simulating Errors in our Email Test.

Simulating "Alt" attributes can be another tricky subject. In Firefox, alt text only appears if the image is broken. In IE, the text appears inside a small popup box. Alt attributes are handled differently inside email clients as well - making it difficult to simulate how they would look in any browser. When simulating web clients, it is our goal to render your email exactly how it would look if a user where to be looking at it from within the browser you are running your acid test in. When it comes to desktop clients, we may eventually have to simulate things like alt text and image blocking exactly the way they look inside the client but that will have to wait for a later release.

In conclusion, at this time, we highly recommend you test in this order:

Step1.) First, test your email in all the popular web browsers (IE 6, 7, 8, FF, Safari, Opera, and Chrome)
Step2.) Then run your email through our Email Test using Firefox. For even better end results, re-run the Acid Test in IE as well.

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!

Turns out it isn't a ghost at all, it's a Microsoft supported escape character which Hotmail adds after every image. As you can rightfully assume, it doesn't lurk in IE but it does in Firefox, Safari, Opera, and Chrome. Since these browsers don't support the escape character, they read it as a special character without any horizontal width (our proverbial sheet over the ghost). That, matched with Hotmail's default CSS (line-height:normal;) creates a vertical space below every image - ah ha - mystery solved!

Whew! Moving on...
Once we figured it out, the next challenge was to simulate the issue in our Email Test. In the end, we are happy to report that we where successfully able to simulate the exact same spacing issues inside FF, Opera and Chrome no matter what size your images are.

This issue of course brings us back to our ongoing question: Should we support multiple web browsers when running our Email Test? So far, the obvious answer seems to be "yes" - considering the fact that results will clearly vary from one browser to the next when it comes to web based email clients. In fact, we feel inclined to simulate your email exactly the way it will look when viewed in the browser you are running your test in.

With all that said; at this time we recommend that you test your HTML/CSS email in the following order:

Step 1.) First, test your email in all the popular web browsers (IE 6, 7, 8, FF, Safari, Opera, and Chrome)
Step 2.) Then run your email through our Acid Test in Firefox for a few reasons...
             a. This will ensure that you see the infamous Hotmail ghost (if it applies to you)
             b. Firefox is the web browser that we have done most of our testing in to date

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.

For example, Hotmail applies a margin value to its p, h1-h6, ul, and li elements and ironically they don't support the "margin" property in the rendered email itself. Fortunately they do support "margin-left," "margin-right," and "margin-bottom." In this instance, if you are using a background color or inserting images in any of these elements and you don't set a value for the above properties, you may see unwanted spacing in the end result.

As luck would have it, web clients are not the only ones using default CSS. Most desktop clients use them as well. We hope you can read through our sarcasm here.

Simulating the so called "default" CSS for each email client wasn't a huge problem for us. It was mostly just a matter of being rather tedious and time consuming and as we continue to run test after test, we are sure to refine them as we go.

When we started this Email Test project, we where obviously aware of the current challenges of testing an email in each of the popular clients, but when doing this type of research we find that it may be even more important than we had originally thought. We even ran several high profile corporate emails through our test and saw that default CSS played a big roll in the final output.

That said, we will conclude by repeating the phrase "It's important to beware!"

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 are they so stubborn? Microsoft's reasoning behind using Word to render HTML is that emails composed in Outlook 07+ will look consistent when viewed by other Outlook 07+ recipients. They also claim that using the Word engine alows users to easily cut and paste from Microsoft office products directly into their email.  To review a complete online explanation from Microsoft click here.

The problem is that not everyone uses Outlook and to assume that recipients will see an email the way that it is composed in Outlook 07+ is a common mistake. In actuality, Outlook has a very small market share in the ever-expanding world of email clients. To assume that they are the only provider is par for the course for Microsoft, therefore it is not a big surprise that they are headed in the same direction for Outlook 2010.

In the end, in order to create a consistent layout in the most popular email clients, developers will continue to be limited to basic HTML with minimal CSS (in-line or embedded) support. Unfortunately, this has been, and will continue to be extremely frustrating for designers and publishers alike. Not only do they have to use basic html but it limits what they can do in their design especially considering that table background images are not supported.

One would think that if Microsoft where to continue to use the Word engine to display HTML in Outlook that they would fix some of the rendering issues in the Office suite. Unfortunately, from our testing, this doesn't appear to be the case. Either they should revert back to the Outlook 2003 (Internet Explorer) engine for rendering HTML or fix Word so it displays HTML correctly.

As annoying as it is that Microsoft appears to have closed the door on HTML rendering for Outlook 2010, the fight is not over. They are still in beta testing and there is a slight chance that they could change it before the public release. Your voice can be heard. Some nice folks over at fixoutlook.org are in pursuit to influence Microsoft to change Outlook. We invite you to join the cause and let Microsoft read your thoughts.

Needless to say, which ever direction Microsoft decides to go we plan to include Outlook 2010 in our Acid Test result as soon as it is released.  Stay tuned...

While we are running our beta release everyone who signs up can run an unlimited amount of Acid Tests for FREE! Over the past couple of months we have worked diligently on creating the most comprehensive online email acid test. No more waiting for screenshots to be created. View the results in seconds! We've added the most popular email clients (Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo and many others) to our acid test in which you can view your email and check for discrepancies.

What are you waiting for? Sign up today and take advantage of our FREE service!

Our goal is to help designers understand the do's and dont's for creating a successfull email campaign. This is a community effort to improve the email experience for both designers and readers alike.