New feature: Quick-start your plain text version
Posted by David Greiner on February 26, 2008
We all know that having a plain text version is an essential component of a well designed email campaign. For people who use email clients that can't display HTML, and for those who prefer plain text, we need to provide information equivalent to the HTML component.
By the time you have fought your way through the endless incompatibilities of email client rendering however, it can be hard work getting yourself excited about a well formatted text version.
Good news! We've just added the ability to jump start your plain text email by automatically pulling all the text out of your HTML version. We can't do all the work for you, but we can save you some time and hassle.
Just click the 'import it from your HTML' link, wait a moment and up will pop your text, stripped of all HTML, your links replaced with the relevant URLs written like so: [http://www.campaignmonitor.com] and your webversion and unsubscribe tags converted to the plain text tag format.
The whole thing is formatted to our recommended width, so that you have the maximum chance of everything working. Then all you need to do is a little tidying to make things neater, and remove anything not relevant for the plain text.
For example, from an upcoming MailBuild newsletter, which looks like this in HTML:
Campaign Monitor can automatically generate the following text:
We hope that will save you a lot of time, and should lead to more nicely formatted plain text versions in the future. Don't forget to checkout our plain text templates and tips for more ways to make your plain text more effective.
8 comments so far
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newGuy
wrote on February 26, 2008 1:10 PM
So your software doesn't automatically create 'MultiPart' for both?
I thought that was standard - or maybe I'm misunderstanding.
Dave Greiner
wrote on February 26, 2008 1:19 PM
Hi newGuy. Yes, we do automatically create a multi-part email, but we give like to give you complete control over the formatting of your plain text version. Many of our customers put in the extra work to ensure this version is as easy to read as possible, and this new shortcut makes this process much easier.
This text version will be included along with the HTML version in a single "multi-part" email and the correct version will be displayed depending on the individual recipients preference.
Steve
wrote on February 26, 2008 5:20 PM
WOOO HOOO
Thanks for letting the e-cat out of the e-bag with the Mailbuild custom domains!!!!!!!!!!!
Great new text-version feature - I think we expected this to come along soon since it's been standard in Mailbuild for a while.
You guys rock - we love you!
Steve
Dave Greiner
wrote on February 26, 2008 5:39 PM
Nice spotting Steve, but at least we announced that feature a few weeks back on the site ;)
The MailBuild version of this was actually a little easier to nail, because the content your clients add was already separate from the HTML itself. This version has to handle anything you guys throw at it as gracefully as possible. Quite the challenge.
Martin Baker
wrote on February 26, 2008 8:58 PM
Absolutely fantastic. I just used this feature yesterday and while there was still some tidying up to do, it saved a lot of time.
Matthew Ryan
wrote on February 29, 2008 4:38 PM
This is a really neat feature. Saves alot of time creating a seperate versions, I am yet to test this but I hope is works well :)
Meredith Self
wrote on March 1, 2008 4:44 AM
Great feature. Huge time saver, though took a little cleaning.
Dig the 'add inline' feature, too. Though this did make some changes in gmail I don't quite understand (like centering everything).
love this product and your responsiveness and constant improvements!
JH Saw
wrote on March 13, 2008 3:21 AM
i m using streamsend.com all the time... is the Campaign Monitor a better email marketing software?
Mr JH Saw
www.blastsg.com
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