Helpful Hints, Inserting Images, and creating Links to documents
When you’re putting together an email with images, links and formatting, you’re really writing a piece of HTML code. Editors use what are known as “WYSIWYG” (What You See Is What You Get) editors so that instead of having to know how to code something to look bold, you can just highlight some text and click a bold button. Anytime you see buttons like “bold” “italic” “left align” “font size”, etc. you’re most likely using a WYSIWYG editor.
Character limitations:
Sometimes you may try to send your email and your editor says that your email file size is too large. (In Jackrabbit, the html character limit is 10,000 characters). This can be caused by many things but the main culprit is the html formatting code that is used to produce formatting such as colors, bolds, italics, highlights, etc. Here are two short sentences with some very basic formatting. You may be tempted to say that the character count is about 40:
But the character count is based on the actual HTML code that is producing all that fancy formatting. Click the HTML icon and the source editor will reveal the actual code that is generating the fonts, colors, bold, italics, and centering formats that were used above:
These two short sentences are actually 438 characters – over 10 times the amount that you suspected – due to all the formatting we added.
All this extra code means the file size of your email increases, and looks more and more like spam or a virus to email recipient ISP’s. So, keep your email simple. If you must include a fancy document with lots of formatting, consider uploading that document to the cloud and then linking to it out of the email. Also, if you format a word or phrase, then un-format it, and reformat it differently, each time it leaves behind html “crumbs” of empty, previously used format codes. This can also greatly increase your character count, as well as cause the text to display very differently to the recipient than what you intended. Because of this reality, it’s important to use a fresh blank email screen every time you
compose an email (instead of taking a previously-sent email, deleting its contents and inputting new content). If you are using a Template that you had already set up in Jackrabbit, make sure to
Two features that may help cut down on all the formatting characters are “Paste from Word” (use this as the Paste button when you have copied text directly from a Word document), and “Clean up Messy Code” (use this anytime to clean up unnecessary format coding).The Paste from Word button is intended to cleanly translate the layout of a document from Word to the web, however, there are many attributes of text that are not preserved when using this functionality (colors and fonts for example). Because Word and HTML do not function in exactly the same way, the Paste from Word button pastes the copied text as closely as possible with respect to layout. More help on Pasting from Word can be found in our online Help Guide in the Email FAQs section:
http://www.helpconsole.com/Jackrabbit%20Online%20Help/default.aspx#pageid=emailing_in_jackrabbit
Email delivery killers
In order to increase the likelihood that your email will be accepted by the recipient’s ISP (and not blocked or seen as possible spam or a virus threat), avoid the following in your emails:
Attach documents. Alternative: upload the document to the web and link to it
Attach photos: Alternative: use the Insert Image icon OR upload to the web and link to it.
Embed videos. Alternative: have a screenshot linked to the video page
Embed surveys. Alternative: Link to the survey with a screenshot
How to use the Insert Image feature
You can easily embed any image (photo, logo, etc) that is residing on the internet directly into your Email. On the internet, find the image you wish to insert – in this example we want to use the “Kids First” logo. Hover your mouse over the image and do a right click. Choose “Copy Image Location” (if using Firefox) or “Copy Image URL” (if using Chrome) or “Properties” > copy the Address (URL) using CTRL / C (in Internet Explorer).
After you have clicked the Copy function, then, in your email editor click the “Insert/Edit Image” (looks like a tree):
Next, put your cursor into the Image URL field, right click, and choose “Paste”
How to create a Hyperlink (link to a document)
Because attachments are not allowed, you will need to upload your document (file, word doc, pdf, etc) to your website OR to a cloud file-sharing service. (Google “Easy free file sharing sites” to get an exhaustive list). You will then use the document internet address (URL, or just called the “link”) in your email. File sharing services will provide you the “link” after you have uploaded your document.
Typically links will start http://...
Let’s say you just finished a 4 page Spring Newsletter that you saved as an adobe pdf document. You would like to include the Newsletter in an email blast to all your customers and also include it on the Customer Portal “News and Announcements” page. (The instructions are the same).
Perhaps your webmaster has already loaded this document to your website. Therefore, it already has a URL link. It could look something like this: http://www.yourwebsite/docs/springnewsletter.pdf
Or, perhaps it isn’t on your website and you don’t have clearances to upload it there. So, upload your pdf to any file sharing service and it will provide you with a link to share. It could look something like this: http://www.greatfilesharingsitename/folder1/randomlongcode8thv5dj9sne76ils38
In your editor, type out what you’d like to say. Then, using your cursor, drag and highlight the specific word or phrase that you want to use as the launch. With that section highlighted, click the “Insert Link” icon (looks like a chain)
