Christmas Messages
Eudora Tip #157/20-Nov-2002

Recently one of my clients asked me to take a digital photo of them so they could include it in a Christmas message to their clients. I did that and also mentioned a few pointers about sending such messages. Now I’d like to share those pointers with you.

52, 20-Sept-2000 mentioned the formatting toolbar which will allow you to format your messages easily. Essentially, when you include a photo within the message or add bold, italic, fancy fonts, colours etc to the message or the signature you’re creating HTML. That’s the coding we use to make web pages.

Traditionally email has been very simple and has only allowed text – no colours, fonts or pictures. Many people still use email software which is not capable of displaying HTML-formatted email. They will simply see an empty window or all the coding which makes your message unintelligible to most.

HTML can be simple, but it also has the scope to be very complex. Just look at how many web pages don’t display properly in your web browser. Moreover, people can use coding within the HTML to achieve results we recipients might not want, such as including viruses and giving out our email address to spammers.

For these reasons many people don’t welcome or sometimes even allow HTML-formatted emails into their computers. I match all incoming emails against various filters such as whether I know the sender and whether the messages are known spam. Then I quarantine all HTML-formatted messages in a special mailbox as they are likely to be emails I don’t want. I know of other people who would simply delete those messages unopened.

So: if you want to create Christmas Card messages with a photo and some jolly red and green text, use the formatting toolbar to help you. You can add bold, italic, various fonts, colours and sizes. Drag a photo into the message (after you’ve reduced the file size to the minimum of course) and drop it where you want it. Make your message as beautiful as you want it and then exercise EXTREME CAUTION.

Don’t send your Christmas Message to everyone in your address book. Instead choose carefully only those recipients you know will be happy to receive it.

Don’t include photos straight from your digital camera or scanner. These are likely to be huge in both physical dimensions and in file size. Reduce the file size to as small as possible – definitely no more than 50 kilobytes. If you don’t know how to do that then my tutorial at [http://mactips.info/tutorials/#photo] will explain in detail. You can support Eudora Tips by paying for that and my other tutorials.

Don’t send any formatted messages to mailing lists – most won’t allow them and you might even be banned from the list.

Do send formatted messages only to individuals you feel certain use email software which can handle HTML formatting. For example, (from memory) Eudora 4 had trouble displaying such messages and would simply show a blank window. Older software just couldn’t handle the HTML.

Ideally, for Christmas messages, you would create a web page and then simply send a link. This makes life much easier all round, reducing the load on email servers, minimising the risks and allowing much more sophisticated formatting. If you don’t know how to make a web page then my free XHTML tutorial and its inexpensive follow-on will help. [http://mactips.info/tutorials/]

If you have iPhoto and a .Mac subscription you can even do it with one click of a button. There are also many free services which allow you to upload your photos – [http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Internet/Web_Design_and_Development/Hosting/Free/].