Plain text templates to save you time
Posted by Mathew Patterson on July 30, 2007
You spend a lot of time crafting your HTML newsletter, tweaking the layout from a previous edition or adding new sections. Then you get to the text entry field, and have to layout the same content again under much greater constraints.
To give you some ideas about how plain text can be best formatted for readability, we've gone looking for some examples of well designed plain text, and then created some simple text templates from them.
Our inspiration (and permission) came from 37Signals, Freshbooks and Good Experience, who all have excellent newsletters that we can personally recommend.
Next time you are faced with that empty text field, just copy and paste a template and fill in the sections. If you already do a great job of text formatting, we'd love to hear about it too. Would it make it easier for you if you always started with the plain text from your last newsletter for that client? Let us know with a comment below.
0 comments so far
Search all posts
Dig into a category
- Articles/Tips (104)
- Email Newsletter Design (121)
- Happy Customers/Press (91)
- In the Forums (10)
- Interviews & Case Studies (9)
- New Features & Updates (112)
- Observations & Answers (89)
Stay in the loop
Prefer updates via email? Sign up below and we'll send you all the good bits each month.
Popular articles
Why we need standards support in email
Read why standards in HTML email are so important, and what we're doing about it.
Email design guidelines
Learn how to design for images being turned off, preview panes and other useful tips.
CSS support in email in 2007
The CSS support of every popular email environment with recommendations to boot.
Image blocking in email
A roundup of how each of the popular email clients suppress images in HTML email.
Can I use flash in email?
We test flash support in all the popular email clients. The verdict - don't do it.
Email design gallery
Our email design gallery showcases more than 150 amazing email designs sent by our talented customers.
Got anything to add?