HTML email: Difference between revisions

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Most graphical [[email client]]s support HTML email, and many default to it. Many of these clients include both a [[GUI]] editor for composing HTML emails and a rendering engine for displaying received HTML emails.
 
Since its conception, a number of people have vocally opposed all HTML email (and even [[MIME]] itself), for a variety of reasons.<ref>[https://subversion.american.edu/aisaac/notes/htmlmail.htm HTML Email: Whenever Possible, Turn It Off!]</ref> For instance, the [[''ASCII Ribbon Campaign]]'' advocated that all email should be sent in [[ASCII]] text format. Proponents placed [[ASCII art]] in their [[signature block]]s, meant to look like an [[awareness ribbon]], along with a message or link to an advocacy site. The campaign was unsuccessful and was abandoned in 2013.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Ascii Ribbon Campaign official homepage |url=http://www.asciiribbon.org/ |access-date=30 January 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100311081242/http://www.asciiribbon.org/ |archive-date=11 March 2010 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title = Shutdown of the ASCII ribbon campaign – Pale Moon forum|url = http://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2705|website = forum.palemoon.org|access-date = 2016-01-30|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160203102930/http://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2705|archive-date = 3 February 2016|url-status = dead}}</ref>

While still considered inappropriate in many newsgroup postings and mailing lists, itsHTML adoption for personal and business mail has only increased over time. Some of those who strongly opposed it when it first came out now see it as mostly harmless.<ref>[http://birdhouse.org/blog/2006/01/15/html-email-the-poll/ HTML Email: The Poll] (Scot Hacker, originator of the much-linked-to ''Why HTML in E-Mail is a Bad Idea'' discusses how his feelings have changed since the 1990s)</ref>
 
According to surveys by [[online marketing]] companies, adoption of HTML-capable email clients is now nearly universal, with less than 3% reporting that they use text-only clients.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Email Marketing Statistics and Metrics – EmailLabs |url=http://www.emaillabs.com/tools/email-marketing-statistics.html |date=2007-03-29 |access-date=2016-01-30 |quote=HTML has nearly universal adoption among consumers: A Jupiter Research consumer survey found just 3% receive only text email. |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070329012457/http://www.emaillabs.com/tools/email-marketing-statistics.html |archivedate=29 March 2007 }}</ref> The majority of users prefer to receive HTML emails over plain text.<ref>{{Cite web|title = Real-World Email Client Usage: The Hard Data {{!}} ClickZ|url = https://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2138714/real-world-email-client-usage-the-hard-data|website = clickz.com|access-date = 2016-01-30|last = Grossman|date = 2002-07-09|first = Edward|quote = Do you prefer receiving HTML or text email? HTML: 41.95%, Text: 31.52%, No preference: 26.53%}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title = The Science of Email Marketing|url = http://www.slideshare.net/HubSpot/the-science-of-email-marketng/32|website = slideshare.net|access-date = 2016-01-30|quote = In what format do you prefer to receive email messages from companies? HTML: 88%, Plain text: 12%}}</ref>
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Among those email clients that do support HTML, some do not render it consistently with [[W3C]] specifications, and many HTML emails are not compliant either, which may cause rendering or delivery problems.
 
In particular, the <code><nowiki><head></nowiki></code> tag, which is used to house CSS style rules for an entire HTML document, is not well supported, sometimes stripped entirely, causing in-line style declarations to be the [[De facto standard|''de facto'' standard]], even though in-line style declarations are inefficient and fail to take good advantage of HTML's ability to [[Separation of content and presentation|separate style from content]].{{citation needed|date=January 2015}} Although workarounds have been developed,<ref>{{cite web|author=Dialect <http://dialect.ca/> |url=http://premailer.dialect.ca/ |title=Premailer: make CSS inline for HTML e-mail |publisher=Premailer.dialect.ca |accessdate=2012-06-24}}</ref> this has caused no shortage of frustration among newsletter developers, spawning the [[grassroots]] Email Standards Project, which grades email clients on their rendering of an [[Acid test]], inspired by those of the [[Web Standards Project]], and lobbies developers to improve their products. To persuade [[Google]] to improve rendering in [[Gmail]], for instance, they published a video montage of grimacing web developers,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.email-standards.org/gmail-appeal |title=The 2008 Gmail Appeal &#124; Email Standards Project |publisher=Email-standards.org |accessdate=2012-06-24 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120515030536/http://www.email-standards.org/gmail-appeal |archivedate=15 May 2012 }}</ref> resulting in attention from an employee.
 
{| class="wikitable"
|+"Email standards project" ''Acid test'' comparison (as of January 2013)[<ref>{{Cite web |date= |title=Home |url=http://www.email-standards.org/] {{Webarchive|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/2017120606040420130114102435/httpshttp://www.email-standards.org/ |archive-date=62013-01-14 December|access-date=2024-12-22 2017|website=Email Standards Project}}</ref>
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!Clients !! Result (as of)