Re: HTML-format e-mail newsletters?

[Dick Margulis <margulis -at- fiam -dot- net>]

Geoff,

I do this all the time (send out html email newsletters that is, not do 
it using Word/Outlook) ...

If you think about it for a minute, you'll realize that you can't "embed 
the graphics in the file" because html doesn't work that way. The 
graphics have to sit on a server somewhere. I just stick them on our Web 
site and link to them there, while I'm working in Dreamweaver. If you 
let Outlook rule your html world, the graphics will be served from your 
Exchange Server, instead, a prospect that leaves our sysadmin quailing 
in trepidation.

If you are convinced you want to use Outlook (something I do not 
recommend), the way you do it from Dreamweaver is to preview the page in 
Internet Explorer (F12 in Dreamweaver), Select All in the browser 
(Ctrl-A), and paste into a blank Outlook html message. (You have to 
select html as your message format in Outlook before this will work.)

If you go that route, send the messsage to yourself. When you receive 
the message, check all the links to make sure they behave the way you 
want them to. Also, omit any kind of javascript behavior (you don't want 
the hassle, believe me). If everything works the way you want, you can 
either copy and paste the message contents into a new message or you can 
forward the message (just delete the forwarding header--no further 
editing is required).

However, if you View Source on the Outlook html message, you will see 
all sorts of ugliness that bears no relation to what you constructed in 
Dreamweaver. So you may not want to go this route.

I use a cheapo bulk email package called Prospect Mailer. There are 
others that are functionally similar. In fact I just got an email ad the 
other day for a $79 package. These programs aren't great, but they're 
adequate. (For example, I have not found one that can do mult-part MIME. 
They all do either text or HTML. (The HTML has a default multi-part MIME 
header, but it is not accessible for editing.)

The advantage of these programs is that you can control the rate at 
which the posts go out (multi-threaded), you can control what SMTP 
server they use. They don't touch your code (just point to your saved 
html file), and they give you simple tools for managing the mailing 
list, all without going near Exchange Server or tying up your corporate 
Outlook mail.

As for going from Word to Dreamweaver, that's not too painful. Mostly I 
copy and paste and do all the formatting and table layout in 
Dreamweaver. But it is also possible to save the Word as html, paste 
that into DW, and use the Clean Up Word HTML function to remove a lot of 
the crud.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Dick

Hart, Geoff wrote: