Email formatting not consistent across email providers

[Agreen2135]

The formatting (mostly paragraph breaks and text wrapping around images) is not consistent when we send to different email providers. It usually looks fine in the preview, on mobile, and on Gmail (although sometimes the copy comes through in purple instead of black on test emails). On Yahoo the paragraph breaks aren't there despite it looking correct in the source code, and on Outlook the text doesn't wrap around the images. I took over the job from someone else who set up the template, so maybe there is something funky in the template. I'm hoping there is something we can do with the template or in the code to fix this so that the emails can go to all email providers looking the same way.

Thank you!
Alaina

[Paige]

Thank you for reaching out to us! Most marketers will tell you formatting for different email providers is one of the most frustrating part of their jobs!

Here are a few tips:

1. Avoid using h1,h1,h3,... tags, these are the most inconsistent with line spacing. Instead use either a div or a p tag.
2. Use tables to encapsulate your content, this will provide stability with widths and heights
3. Use standard web fonts, most computers/email providers don't support fonts that are not a standard web font and will display it differently

The easiest way to send emails that look EXACTLY the way you want them to in all providers is to use an image or series of images to design your email. This method is how all professional companies send their emails. This enables them to have full control and use branded fonts/colors.

[Agreen2135]

Thank you, Paige. We do have the email set up with blocks, we're using Verdana for the font, and I only had a couple of h3 tags in, but changed them all to paragraph breaks (p) and it didn't help. I don't want to use all images for many reasons. Is there anyone who can take a look at the specific emails I'm working on to see if there's anything in the template or code they would suggest changing?

[Paige]

Looking at your email "12.16.15 Email-Verdana", image floats are not allowed in all versions of Outlook, it is recommended to use tables to achieve this look.

As for you <p> tags, I sent the email to a yahoo address, I see what you mean down by the "Read More...". This is dependent on how the email provider is reading the email, if it is reading it as webkit (like gmail does) it puts in special margins. But most providers do not do this for you. The best solution is to put inline style on the <p> tags that are causing the spacing issues, here is the style: style="margin: 5px 0px;"

We are working on an easier solution to this in one of the upcoming versions.

Here is a really nice reference about how to code email to work in all mail providers: http://stackoverflow.com/a/127576/4176087

[Agreen2135]

Thank you, I will try your suggestions!