Email Testing - Product Features

Screen Captures

Email on Acid takes real screen captures of your email as it appears across all major email clients.  Just enter your URL or upload your HTML and within seconds, you can start viewing your email exactly as it looks in each individual client.

Code-Based Previews

In order to generate a code based preview of your email, we use specific algorithms to strip out code that is not supported by each email client. To do this, we have developed a series of diagnostic tests that we run against each client in order to simulate it’s behaviors.  Using this type of simulation tool, developers can find and correct rendering issues more efficiently.

Note: We simulate web based clients exactly as they appear in the browser that is being used to run the Acid Test.

Spam Analysis

See if your email gets through common spam blockers!  Our SPAM Analysis will test the reputation of the server sending your email as well as its content.

We currently support the following: AOL, Gmail, Hotmail, Outlook 2003, 2007, 2010, Postini, Spam Assassin, and Yahoo.

Note: It comes as no surprise that these spam blocker services are very private about their methods.  In fact, most only provide a “passed” or “failed” result.

Code Analysis

Our code analysis allows you to see exactly which lines of code are not supported in each email client. This allows you to troubleshoot issues quickly and efficiently.  We also provide Critical, Moderate, and Minor classifications for each reported discrepancy.

Client Interpretation

We provide the code as it was interpreted by email clients like Outlook 2007 and 2010.  This helps to shed light on how some proprietary rendering engines work.

Client Tips & Tricks

In case you get stumped by a certain email client, we’ve consolidated advice from our blog and a few trusted resources online.  We also encourage our developer community to openly share additional tips and tricks with each other within our application and in our public forum.

Code Validation

In addition to our Code Analysis, we also provide code validation checks on your HTML to ensure that it is WC3 compliant and to help you resolve critical issues.  The “strictness” of this validation is determined by your DOCTYPE.

Note: A stray </div> can completely mess up your layout within a web based email client like Hotmail so this type of validation is highly recommended.

Design Optimization

Designing for email blasts can be tricky. Many clients have several view pane configurations available to end users while others make use of banner advertising which can crowd out your email. Also, web based clients are accessible via web browsers and users have varying monitor settings making it very difficult to know exactly how each of your readers will see your email.

As a general rule of thumb, we recommend that your email design is a maximum of 600 pixels wide to ensure that users do not have to scroll horizontally in order to read it. Also the most important messaging of your email should be located in the top 400 pixels so that it appears “above the fold” in most clients. Our Acid Test will allow you to see how much of your original message is cropped out by each client making it easier for you to tailor your design for all email applications.

Generate Plain Text Version of your Email

Sometimes, especially with long emails, creating the text only version can be a tedious task. Our “Generate Text Version” tool simply outputs the plain text from your email. This will give you a starting point for formatting your text alternative.

Please Note: Results will most likely vary depending on the complexity of your layout and we do not translate copy embedded within images.

Generate Inline CSS Version of your Email

Since Gmail does not support embedded stylesheets in HTML emails. We’ve created a tool that will convert your embedded CSS to inline with just one click. No need to waste time duplicating your code into every HTML element, let us do it for you!

Image Blocking

Most of the popular desktop email clients have built in image blocking features for its users in order to help them cut down on spam and load times.

It is extremely important to keep this in mind when designing an HTML email.  If all of your important messaging is embedded in one or multiple photos, the end user with image blocking enabled may miss your message completely.

Our image blocking feature lets you to toggle images on and off so that you can see your email before and after an image download.