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7 Comments

HTML for Email

Email HTML is the worst HTML.

I'm making a template for an email notification for Pluckd and that got me completely stuck.

I started by using the email builder from Moosend. The final result looks good, but it's a mess of tables inside tables I see no way of maintaining.

The option was to create a more simple layout as Circle does, but then the contents won't be as neatly aligned.

I wondered if I'm the only one having these issues and, if not, what tools to you use to create Email HTML.

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    Hey Fernando 👋!

    I feel your pain because I've definitely had my share of struggles with designing emails and email signatures in the past (the ol' trick of "segment the email and set as background in different cells of tables" is something I do NOT want to relive again!)

    Though I haven't used Moosend, I find that the builders in most ESPs get the job done e.g. Mailchimp's is pretty robust and I've had good experiences with SendGrid and Sendinblue.

    My tool of choice at the moment is MJML; a terrific part of my workflow so far! I use it to design templates, export them as HTML and add them to whatever I'm working on. To keep track of the MJML template itself, I commit it along with my code into the relevant repository. There is also Dyspatch and HEML but I've just been using MJML.

    Hope that helps you!

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      Wow... I can use it for signatures too?

      Moosend is pretty similar to SendGrid's. Dyspatch seems similar to both.

      I gave MJML and HEML a look. You have to install MJML, whereas HEML seems just what the doctor ordered! I'll give it a go! Thanks!!

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        It's great that you went with HEML 😁.

        But I also want to point out you can use MJML online too at this link: MJML Email Editor and that's actually how I use it; I don't have it installed so I just open the editor, copy and paste the template from my local repo, edit and re-download.

        Do give MJML a try, too!

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          It's not loading though... maybe it doesn't work on Brave browser?

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            That's super weird 🤔. I use Brave as well and it's loading fine for me; I don't even have shields disabled on the site. Oh well as long as HEML is working for you it's all good - I'm only advocating for MJML because it has a bunch of great in-built templates and nice documentation but maybe HEML will check those boxes for you as well. Glad I could be of help 👍.

  2. 1

    Yeah, I've had to deal with this as well. I looked into MJML that @xmok mentioned but found that it wasn't as configurable as I would've liked it to be.

    I ended up just creating React components with reusable inline CSS. That way, I only have to go through that tedious process of setting up table formatting once and then I can just reuse those components over and over again when drafting new email templates.

    But that's a kinda time-consuming approach and only really needed if you're as much as an unhealthy perfectionist as me haha.

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