RichText Email on Blackberry - email

We are currently sending our emails as HTML but it is not rendering properly on the blackberry. It add's extra blank lines. I assume that is because of the tag. Anyways when sending them as plain text they render correctly, but now the user wants some of the keywords to be bolded. Would rich text format be viable? Should it render properly in the blackberry and if so what would be the syntax for a new line \n.
Note: The HTML emails render correctly in Outlook.

We have had pretty good experiences with html mails on BB 4.5 and up (although not perfect). Try using paragraph tags instead of the new line character.
But you may need to fiddle around a bit with the email format to get it looking great.

Related

Outlook email format changes when forwarded, How to format in such a way its not modified

The automated outlook emails using pywin32 and plain HTML were great till people started using it for forwarding and reply, Once you forward all the HTML formats are getting stripped and the borders of the table suddenly disappears. The way around is to go to your outlook settings and disable the option "Reduce message size by removing format information not necessary for the message".
The question is how to format the email so that it wont be lost when forwarded and make the format information necessary for the message ?
I have found out a work around though, It is observed that outlook is stripping of those styles which are defined in style block, If the styles are defined embedded in tags its escaping the stripping. As of now I have taken this approach

Does tab character render correctly in email signature

I want to create a plain text email signature, and use tab to align my columns. Can I guarantee it will be correctly displayed on all email clients?
Is there a better way to achieve what I want - which is a very simple two column email signature where the columns are left aligned, and it looks exactly the same on all email clients?
No. This is not possible in plain text.
Best practice in plain text is to use spaces for aligning. This only works on monospace fonts. Use HTML tables and HTML formatting of your email if you want to have control over rendering. This is supported by all major email clients.

Exchange Disclaimer plain text formatting

I am using a Transport Rule in Exchange Server 2010 to append some HTML to the end of our company emails. This is working just fine when an email is sent out as HTML. When the message is plain text, the HTML and images are converted into [links] and it looks a mess.
Is it possible to apply conditional formatting to append an HTML message at the end of HTML emails, and a different layout for plain text emails? Failing that, can I get it to simply ignore the rule if the message isn't in HTML?
Thank you
I have discovered that the only way to achieve what I was after is by using a 3rd party add-on. So the answer to the question really is "no" for both parts!
3rd party tools like Symprex or Exclaimer may help people out in a similar situation.

Multipart email best practices

I am developing a web app that sends out emails. Currently, all emails have a HTML part.
Questions:
Is it important to include a text part also?
Do you include both?
Is just removing all the tags from the HTML message and adding a few line breaks good enough to create a text part from the HTML part?
Thanks, Kevin
Is it Important to include a text part also? It's a best practice to provide a plain text version of the email. However, in my opinion and in this day and age, I would guess that it is not such a big deal to leave it out. However, if you know more about your recipients' email clients (eg: if you're sending the emails in a corporate environment and everyone uses a particular email client), then you can determine how necessary it really is.
Do you include both? The .net framework (which I use) provides an AlternateView class (MSDN) that allows you to easily specify copies of an email in different formats. It makes things very easy to include a plain text version of the email. Perhaps you can find something similar in apache/php.
Is just removing all the tags from the HTML message and adding a few line breaks good enough to create a text part from the HTML part? Technically, yes but be VERY CAREFUL here. A complex HTML layout that has been converted to plain text will look absolutely terrible if all you do is remove HTML tags and pile the content together. It really depends on your content and how much you can do to manipulate said content. Also, take a look at Campaign Monitor'ssuggestions for formatting plain text emails.
One final word of advice for you HTML emails to test, test, and then test some more. When you're finished testing, test again. HTML emails will render differently in different email clients and, if some of your recipients are using Microsoft Word 2007/2010 then you can forget about web standards. I urge you to take a look at Campaign Monitor's Guide to CSS support in email.

How to enable copy/paste formatted text from Lotus Notes to TinyMCE?

This question was previously posted to the TinyMCE HowTo Forum with no responses. Here's hoping that someone out there has encountered (and solved) this issue.
The question: Is there some way to enable correct copy/paste of formatted text from a Lotus Notes email directly into TinyMCE?
The scenario: A rolling comments system on a web site, into which users occasionally need to paste rich text from an email viewed in Lotus Notes.
The details:
I have tried copying some formatted text from emails viewed in Lotus Notes (7.0.4, Windows XP) and pasting it into the "Full featured example" implementation of TinyMCE at http://tinymce.moxiecode.com/examples/full.php and found that it generally fails to maintain the formatting. In fact, of the browsers I tested, IE6 fared the best, and the more modern W3C standards compliant browsers were the worst.
Some text formatting I tested was:
larger text
underline
italics
bold
numbered list
bullet list
indented text
permanent pen
font family: arial
font family: times new roman
Results:
-Firefox (3.6.8), Vista or XP: all formatting lost
-Chrome (5.0.375.125), Vista or XP: all formatting lost, including line breaks
-IE6 (XP): some formatting is maintained (fails to copy numbers and bullets for lists, but indents lists properly)
-IETester (IE6) Vista: some formatting is maintained (fails to format lists at all, and the underline tag is not closed)
-IE7 (XP): some formatting is maintained (fails to format lists at all, and the underline tag is not closed)
-IE8 (Vista): some formatting is maintained (fails to format lists at all, and the underline tag is not closed)
If I first paste the clipboard from Lotus Notes into MS Word 2003 (11.5604.5606) it shows perfectly in Word, and if I then copy/paste it from there into TinyMCE it generally works better enough to be usable, although still loses some formatting, even when using the "Paste from Word" button in TinyMCE. Not surprisingly, if I open my Lotus Notes mail in a web mail client, the HTML mail copies and pastes perfectly into TinyMCE.
Since it shows perfectly in my Domino web client, and pastes perfectly into MS Word, it is obviously possible to copy/paste Lotus Notes formatting.
If anyone has had success with this please mention your Notes and browser versions, and any modifications you had to make to the TinyMCE config.
If you check what's pasted from Word, you'll find that it's pretty much what you'd get if you had done a File->Save As->Web Page in Word: a whole bunch of Word-specific HTML attributes and CSS. Essentially, it's Word's ability to be coerced into exporting HTML that does the trick; Word's rich text alone won't do the job. The Notes clipboard (which is different from the system clipboard) can export RTF to the system clipboard, which then pastes (with limitations) to Word (which can interpret RTF), but a JavaScript widget in the browser doesn't understand RTF.
You can use the w32 api to do your formatted copy (e.g. make a special copy btn in LotusScript and call it). I have actually done this, and it works fine.
however, will TinyMCE handle the paste operation well? - that I cannot tell you.
I have logged this as a bug against TinyMCE.
Ok, then eigther you will need to deactivate the paste plugin and write a plugin of your own or you will have to configure/change the paste plugin to your needs.
If I first paste the clipboard from Lotus Notes into MS Word 2003 (11.5604.5606) it shows >perfectly in Word, and if I then copy/paste it from there into TinyMCE it generally works >better enough to be usable,
Thing is, that your OS detects (at least sometimes) from which kind of context (plain text, html,...) copy-paste is done. That probably is the reason why copying it first into Word helps a bit.