Introduction
You can prepare your newsletter for sending depending on whether it will be HTML or plain text. When you email an HTML newsletter, you are basically creating a web page that appears in the recipient’s email program. Problem is, some email clients (programs), still don’t understand HTML. Some may only display the code with the text mixed in. Then there are companies that choose to disable HTML capabilities from their email client because they don’t like to view the offensive images that may get past spam filtersdubious analogies.
Remember that your email client is different than your web browser. Therefore, it’s possible for it to interpret your code in a different way than a browser. The trick is to determine what you should do differently in your newsletter than on your website pages. Many newsletter software allows you to send both HTML versions and text versions.
Preparing a Text Version
The text version of your newsletter has fewer formatting options than your old-fashioned stylewriter. You can only use all caps for text formatting. But, the Shift keys and the hyphen can be used for drawing lines. This is useful to divide sections of your newsletter. A line is helpful for readers to identify content in your newsletter.
Line breaks are a common problem for text-based newsletters. When you open your newsletter in Microsoft Word, and then move it to another program (e.g., your email program, or newsletter system), you might find that the line spacing is inconsistent or not right where you want. Because the issues may not become apparent until after your newsletter has been sent, it is possible to not discover them until then. This is due to the fact that different codes are required for a return. A program may use one code while another might use a different.