[thelist] CFMAIL and CSS

Thu Feb 27 18:46:01 CST 2003

In my (limited) experience, it doesn't matter where you put <style />.
But what isn't working?

My suggestion would be to view source of several really good html
emails and come up with an approach based on your observations ... and
test test test in as many email clients as you can stand. I've tested
mine in (listed by "looks perfect" and "is best one can expect")
(sample at end of this email)

Perfect:
yahoo web mail
hotmail
Outlook Express 5 Win/Mac
Netscape mail 4 Win
Netscape 7 mail Mac
Latest AOL
Pegasus

Has problems, but is very legible/usable:
Mail.app
Eudora Win/Mac

<tip type="avoiding Eudora centering of all HTML in html email"
author="erik mattheis">

Eudora rewrites HTML email, usually with horrid results. To avoid it
centering everything instead of just the elements you want it to, use
...

<div style="text-align:center"></div>

... and the text will be left-aligned.
</tip>

If you're interested, this is the skelleton of the approach I'm using
... am open to suggestions for improvement, but works fine for the
email clients I listed above:

<!---  the following will only show up in really old or bare bones
email readers --->

This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not
understand
this format, some or all of this message may not be legible.

----=BOUNDARY_2271253_LLXK_RSAO_NHDS_IREL
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"
Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable

[body of plain text version here]

----=BOUNDARY_2271253_LLXK_RSAO_NHDS_IREL
Content-Type: text/html; charset="ISO-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

<HTML>
<table width="600" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0">
<tr>
<td>
To view this email as a web page, click <a href="link">here.</a><br>
To unsubscribe, please send an email to <a
href="mailto:email at address?subject=UNSUBSCRIBE"> email at address </a>
with the subject UNSUBSCRIBE</td>
</tr>
</table>
<body>
<style type="text/css">
<!--
<!--- style definitions here --->
-->
</style>

<!--- any html you wish to put here --->

</body>
</html>

----=BOUNDARY_2271253_LLXK_RSAO_NHDS_IREL--

</code>

On Thursday, February 27, 2003, at 05:25  PM, Russ wrote:
> I've never had to try this before--and now that I am, I'm failing to
> find "the way" to address CSS in my CFMAILs that I'm sending out.
>
> I do know that I need to manually define the styles in the document
> rather than link to an external page, but I am successfully placing
> them
> so that they're being referenced the right way.
>
> Can anyone point me in the right direction?

-----------------------
Erik Mattheis
GoZz Digital
<http://goZz.com/>
Flash and ColdFusion Development
Minneapolis, MN
-----------------------