sending formatted email

douglasgifford · January 8, 2005

I've been using FileMaker to generate emails for some time but have always assumed that there was no way to preserve any character-level formatting (i.e. italics). Is this the case? I quickly tried the getAsCSS() function but the resulting email was filled with code rather than properly formatted.

Whatever I use, it needs to be pretty much lowest-common-denominator; I don't want my emails to be filled with gibberish just because someone has turned off "use HTML" in Eudora.

Fenton · January 8, 2005

This is an interesting question. And I'd love to know how to tell email clients directly to use html formatting, if I should so wish (or rather if my clients so wish).

What I've done is used the SMTPit plug-in and sent html-formatted emails, which it does. Otherwise I believe you have to instruct the email client about the content, via a header. Which I don't know how to do; and was not motivated to find out, since SMTPit is fairly inexpensive, cross-platform, has good documentation and example files, which you can copy and use.

http://www.smtpit.com

On Macs, the AppleScript Scripting Addition from 24U is even cheaper:

http://www.24usoftware.com/

HTML email has this header:

Content-Type: text/html

Plain has this:

Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"

And the tags they use? Well, it looks like some kind of homemade voodoo HTML 3 to me :-/

This is more or less what I'd use with SMTPit:

<b>This is bold green text</b></font></div>

</body>

</html>

Eudora html:

<x-html><!x-stuff-for-pete base="" src="" id="0" charset=""><!doctype html public "-//W3C//DTD W3 HTML//EN">

<b>This is Eudora's html</b></font></div>

</body>

</html>

</x-html>

Apple Mail, Rich Text:

<x-rich><fontfamily><param>Times New Roman</param><color><param>FFFF,0DE0,E7E5</param><bigger>

<x-tad-bigger>This is a test to see what Apple html looks like

</x-tad-bigger></bigger></color></fontfamily>

</x-rich>

I won't subject you to what comes with Microsoft Office, a huge hodgepodge of html and CSS all mixed together, applied to every sentence.

It's all a bloody mess. Standards? Don't make me laugh. Email clients were just never really designed to do html. Maybe someday they will use browser engines and support true CSS, but right now it's kind of a mess, for the person trying to write this in something like FileMaker anyway.

Fenton · January 8, 2005

Being every optimistic, I tried the simple GetAsCSS from FileMaker, as a way to format text for SMTPit; which means it was sent as proper html email. No dice. Eudora at least doesn't understand the CSS, not even a <span style="whatever"> tag. And yes, I have the html turned on in Eudora.

douglasgifford · January 8, 2005

Thanks, Fenton, for the detailed answer. It looks like maybe I'll have to wait for FMPro 8 or so. (Formatting would be a nicety, not a deal-breaker, and I prefer to avoid plug-ins.)

Forgive my ignorance, but does Eudora automatically produce HTML if there's any formatting in an email? I ask this because I just looked at my out-box using BBEdit and it's full of HTML--I had assumed that it would be some email specific formatting thing.

The mess of headers and tags reminds me of a project where I had to generate RTF from a FM5.5 file. Your typical MS Word RTF had, sometimes, pages of headers--it was ghastly. Most of it was utterly irrelevant but did an excellent job of slowing me down trying to figure out how to generate it myself. In the end, the truly necessary stuff was only a couple of lines per file.

Fenton · January 8, 2005

Eudora produces HTML if you format text in Eudora. But not if you format it in FileMaker, not even if you copy/paste. You cannot get styled text out of 7, not with copy/paste, not with AppleScript; it's Unicode text, no styles. It's the future I guess; but the future always has a few problems in the present :-|

Fenton · January 8, 2005

Actually your question about whether Eudora automatically produces HTML is: it's a Setting. In the Styled Text, there is a preference whether to send either: plain only, styled only, or both; with one more option: ask each time. The "asking" only kicks in if you actually do have formatted text in your email.

So I have "send both," with "ask each time." I am on other plain-text mailing lists. It is (or used to be) a breach of etiquette to send HTML formatted email to such lists. If you are conscientious, then you will even strip HTML out of your replies to other's HTML emails (which will otherwise, by default, become HTML themselves).

HTML is particularly a problem if you archive such email in another application, like FileMaker. You will see the HTML, which in most cases makes the text almost unreadable. It becomes necessary to strip it out (usually with grep).

99.9% of the time people send HTML unconsciously, because their email client does it by default, and does not make it either clear or easy for people to change it. Both Microsoft and Apple are guilty of this. And both send marketing emails as HTML; I wonder if there is any connection :-?

Eudora has resisted this trend, because it bloats email to many times its plain text size, and causes other problems. They were called "obsolete" for this stance. Eudora now also produces and reads HTML by default, but it is fairly easy to change so that you remain in control. The majority of users are not aware of any problem, and cannot be expected to be; so HTML must be the default.

</rant>

Fenton · January 8, 2005

One more, and then I'll shut up :-] Here's a work-around, with no plug-in. Pseudo code:

GetAsCss(Email body)

Export as text file

Open with Safari

Select All, Copy

Paste into Eudora

Not pretty, but it works. AppleScriptable. But it's going to flash the screen when Safari opens the file to copy. Eudora then translates the formatted text to its own HTML 3ish code; it doesn't use the CSS.

douglasgifford · January 8, 2005

Thanks, Fenton.

bcooney · February 1, 2007

Has any of this changed with FM8? I'm still looking for formatted email on a Mac when using Send Mail script step.

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sending formatted email

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