HTML Email Template Issues
Hi there,
I wonder if anyone can help me. I have created an email template using BeePro for my business to confirm bookings and details for customers to pay deposits etc. On BeePro you have the option to export the HTML code so you can use your own clients etc. which I have done and inserted it into a blank email in Thunderbird.
The main issue I'm having is; when I send this email using Thunderbird, the formatting gets messed up on the recipients end, on mobile devices in particular - I've attached some photos. I've also attached photos of Thunderbirds composer where the formatting seems to be correct. BeePro offers the service to send a test email, I have done this and the formatting is perfect when viewing on mobile - I've also attached photos of this.
The second issue I'm having is the images don't seem to be loading when the email has been opened - these are hosted externally on my website and linked in the HTML code, however seem to work fine when composing an email in Thunderbird. I'm not sure if this is a Thunderbird issue or external however I do currently have a more basic HTML template I use for this purpose that also has my logo sourced from my website which works fine.
I've downloaded the latest version of Thunderbird (102.1.1) thinking I may have had an out of date version installed causing the problem however this hasn't changed anything.
I've been scratching my brain for the past couple of days trying to figure out what the issue is however I'm having no luck searching the web! I've tried contacting Bee support and yet to get a response.
Thanks for your time! Scott
All Replies (2)
Lets start with remote images. Check the HTML actually points to an external web domain (often internally drive letters that have been assigned in Windows for network locations appear in generated HTML) This issue can see the HTML actually pointing to a location that the recipient can not access. While you are at it, make sure the tag moz-do-not-send is set to true in the HTML img tag. Otherwise Thunderbird will download and include the image in the email, making it much larger than it should be. Example : < img src="http://www.domainName.com/myImage.jpg" moz-do-not-send="true" >
Next you will have to look at the HTML used to generate the tables. Most generated HTML in my experience uses absolute values for the dimensions of tables. But that works exceedingly poorly with different sized screens.
The next item to check is that CSS is not being used to define the sizes of the tables. Thunderbird will play with CSS, but many email applications do not render CSS at all, or only render it in some "special" form. Campaign monitor as a big player in the marketing Email space and offer CSS tables of what can be used and were in what mail applications. https://www.campaignmonitor.com/css/
Fundamentally email marketing is a specialist topic and well beyond the scope of this forum. But it is fraught with issues when it comes to doing anything more that "basic" HTML functions
Hi Matt,
Thanks so much for your reply. I have double checked the images are linked externally and have copied and pasted the URL on a separate computer and the image does load. There wasn't the 'moz-do-not-send' tag in the code however I have now added this.
Regarding checking how the tables are generated this is a bit beyond my knowledge and I'm not sure exactly what I'm looking for. I can see some CSS is used to define some overall styles at the top of the code however I'm not sure if that's specifically affecting the tables. I may have to try and find someone that could look over the code for me and point me in the right direction. Excuse the naivety, I just thought it would be a case of creating the template in the builder and simply copying the code across.
Another possible naive question; if it is a case of the code has CSS and fixed size tables which cannot be rendered properly by the email applications, why would the email format perfectly fine with no issues when I send a test email directly from Bee?
Thanks! Scott