How many fellow mac heads have been frustrated at the difficulty sending HTML email using your mail program? That has been one of the most frustrating issues for me. When I send my invoices, which are created in DW (using a template), I have to open them in a browser and save them as a PDF, then attach to the email. There are other times I would like to send a nice pretty HTML email, but I only have cursory formatting available in Entourage.
Michael Jones, a friend from my rather chatty WebWeavers list, just pointed me to a MacWorld article that contains the answer. You can get the details there, but Rob Buckley created a free Send Complex HTML with Inline Files 2004 that was about as easy to install and use as anything I've done yet. It's a matter of putting the Applescript into your Entourage Script Menu Items folder and then showing the email the path to your HTML file. Voila! Lovely formatted HTML email from OS X! What more could you want? Thanks Rob!
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Very helpful thanks
You are most welcome!
Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to work so good for my hotmail friends.
Getting messages like:
————————————-
This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not understand
this format, some or all of this message may not be legible.
–AppleScriptHTMLbreak
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
–AppleScriptHTMLbreak
Content-Type: multipart/related; type=”text/html”;
boundary=AppleScriptBreak
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
This is an HTML email
–AppleScriptBreak
Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
< !DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
—————————————
Then it presents the format(html page) okay but the images don’t fall into place.
The image attachments seem to have quadrupled:
—————————————
Attachment : IGLTFLYER5max_img_0.jpg (0.02 MB), IGLT-FLYER-5c1_03.jpg (0.03 MB), IGLT-FLYER-5c1_07_1.jpg (0.06 MB), 18x18spacer.jpg (0.02 MB), IGLT-FLYER-5c1_11.jpg (< 0.01 MB), IGLTFLYER5max_img_0.jpg (0.02 MB), IGLT-FLYER-5c1_03.jpg (0.03 MB), IGLT-FLYER-5c1_07_1.jpg (0.06 MB), 18x18spacer.jpg (0.02 MB), IGLT-FLYER-5c1_11.jpg (< 0.01 MB), IGLTFLYER5max_img_0.jpg (0.02 MB), IGLT-FLYER-5c1_03.jpg (0.03 MB), IGLT-FLYER-5c1_07_1.jpg (0.06 MB), 18x18spacer.jpg (0.02 MB), IGLT-FLYER-5c1_11.jpg (< 0.01 MB), IGLTFLYER5max_img_0.jpg (0.02 MB), IGLT-FLYER-5c1_03.jpg (0.03 MB), IGLT-FLYER-5c1_07_1.jpg (0.06 MB), 18x18spacer.jpg (0.02 MB), IGLT-FLYER-5c1_11.jpg (< 0.01 MB), IGLTFLYER5max_img_0.jpg (0.02 MB), IGLT-FLYER-5c1_03.jpg (0.03 MB), IGLT-FLYER-5c1_07_1.jpg (0.06 MB), 18x18spacer.jpg (0.02 MB), IGLT-FLYER-5c1_11.jpg (< 0.01 MB)
—————————————
There should be only 5!!
Then there comes this:
————————————–
–AppleScriptBreak
Content-Type: image/jpeg; name=”IGLT FLYER 5max_img_0.jpg”
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-ID:
Content-Disposition: inline; filename=”IGLT FLYER 5max_img_0.jpg”
Followed by a really long “patch” of text like this:
———————————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————————————-
After that the html page repeats 3,4, maybe 5 times.
Any ideas why?
wow! thank you for the tip! I’ve got a customer that has been begging us to do html emails for him and we’ve been saying “we can’t” and now I know “we can” and very easily too!!!!
Since my last posts here I have gotten better at using Dreamweaver. I have also found that using Mozilla Thunderbird lets me transfer directly the file into an email that even my hotmail friends can read.
PS: It would be nice if I could have my email address removed from my older posts. I don’t want it to become prey to spammers
Hi Kirk:
I’ll remove your email address, but the link for comments is behind a javascript, and also the address is not shown as text so that spammers can’t harvest it automatically.