Email formatting

Hey Karen. The approach we've taken with Online Express is that emails should never appear illegible or poorly formatted on any reasonably modern mobile device. Because of the many ways in which different email devices and clients implement interpretation of HTML and CSS standards differently, it's definitely possible to see some small differences in how a given email renders. And you'll definitely see big differences (by design) in how emails will look when comparing the desktop design (i.e. what you see in Online Express) and what you see on mobile devices.


Rather than expect users of Online Express to have proficiency in HTML/CSS authoring and to be versed in the various tweaks and tricks that are necessary to work around all the ways email clients don't properly adhere to published HTML/CSS standards, we chose to bake that stuff into OLX. The tradeoff was that we wouldn't be able to give you access to the underlying HTML because we wouldn't be able to ensure your would always produce desirable outcomes across all devices/clients.


I can tell you that in our new email marketing tool in RE NXT, we have plans to allow HTML editing for more advanced content authors. We're imagining a workflow where you could begin in the drag and drop editor and get an email quickly drafted so that it's close to your design intent...but then let you switch over to HTML world. You wouldn't be able to come back to drag and drop world after altering the HTML (for the same reason as noted above)...but it would allow more advanced folks who are comfortable working in HTML to do so.

Chris Martin:

Hey Karen. The approach we've taken with Online Express is that emails should never appear illegible or poorly formatted on any reasonably modern mobile device. Because of the many ways in which different email devices and clients implement interpretation of HTML and CSS standards differently, it's definitely possible to see some small differences in how a given email renders. And you'll definitely see big differences (by design) in how emails will look when comparing the desktop design (i.e. what you see in Online Express) and what you see on mobile devices.


Rather than expect users of Online Express to have proficiency in HTML/CSS authoring and to be versed in the various tweaks and tricks that are necessary to work around all the ways email clients don't properly adhere to published HTML/CSS standards, we chose to bake that stuff into OLX. The tradeoff was that we wouldn't be able to give you access to the underlying HTML because we wouldn't be able to ensure your would always produce desirable outcomes across all devices/clients.


I can tell you that in our new email marketing tool in RE NXT, we have plans to allow HTML editing for more advanced content authors. We're imagining a workflow where you could begin in the drag and drop editor and get an email quickly drafted so that it's close to your design intent...but then let you switch over to HTML world. You wouldn't be able to come back to drag and drop world after altering the HTML (for the same reason as noted above)...but it would allow more advanced folks who are comfortable working in HTML to do so.

Hey Kevin Christensen‍ thanks for the bump and sorry for missing your post. We don't have committed timing just yet on allowing access to the underlying HTML, but it probably won't be before the end of the year. We're working on a few other things that customer feedback tells us are more urgently needed by more marketers (and hopefully they'll be valuable for you too!).


Are you comfortable sharing any specific examples of content design you're not sufficiently able to produce using the drag and drop editor? In our perfect world, no user ever feels like their only way to produce a given design intent is by cracking open the HTML (and bearing the responsibility of the associated cross-device testing, etc.) so we'd like to chip away at any constraints that stand in the way of drag and drop design flexibility.


But we love our power users too and are committed to getting out of their (your) way and letting you do what you do best in code. Stay tuned to the RE NXT quarterly roadmap webinars for updates as we get closer.

Chris Martin‍,


We also build out our monthly newsletters via Luminate and it's important that we have the ability to view the email in a web version. We use that link to share the newsletter on Social Media and create an archive list for those that want to look back through. Is that also a feature coming to NXT's builder anytime soon or will users only be able to see the email version that was sent them? 


Thanks! 

We too would love to be part of the EAP for getting more flexibility with emails in OLX. My marketing team is SOOOOO frustrated that they are looking at other options that would not easily integrate with RE/NXT. I am not happy about it, but there is nothing I can do unless Blackbaud gives us more ability to design emails. Period. Why can't this be done sooner?

Chris Martin:

Awesome feedback Kevin Christensen‍! Wanting more flexibility/granularity with padding and margins is legit..we've heard this request from others as well and is something we're looking at. We've also considered an implementation of HTML editing where you can start in drag/drop world to get some rough layout work done quickly and then toggle over to HTML world to fine tune.


And yes the web version of emails is something we've been asked about as well. There's a separate thread on the community that mentions this. Would a simple web page view of the email without any further links/branding on the page meet your needs?