Plain text emails: design and format tips

Latest posts | Feed | By Mark Brownlow on August 13, 2008

After publishing a list of top resources on HTML email design, it's only fair to turn attention to the text-only format.

After all, everyone advises sending both HTML and plain text versions of your emails, and people might actually get to see the latter. Not to mention that the text format still dominates transactional email (order confirmations etc.). And some audiences simply prefer text email to its HTML sibling.

But...

...there are more resources showing you how to ride an elephant than how to design or format plain text emails. That's not a joke: try a Google search.

Come on design community: turn your creative skills to text!

Articles

Craft a compelling text message: Broad advice on how to approach the design and layout of text-only messages.

Outlook 2007 and text: Describes the little idiosyncrasies of Outlook when displaying text-only email, plus offers solutions.

Key to a good header: advice on designing plain-text headers that communicate key information quickly.

The text email format: My own advice on how to ensure your text-only emails display as intended. From 2001, when HTML email was a niche and measuring open rates was considered cutting edge.

Why bother?: Buried in this article on format preferences are eight tips on creating plain text emails.

Plain-text versions: This article about raising open rates also has tips on designing and formatting text-only mails.

Guide to effective email: More old advice, yet still largely relevant, on formatting considerations when using plain text only.

The how and why: explains why you need to use creative separators in your text emails.

Tools

NoteTabPro: My favorite text editor, which is used for plain text emails as well as coding the entire Email Marketing Reports site.

Text Formatter Plus
Software specifically designed for formatting text email newsletters.

Templates

Three plain text templates: Campaign Monitor share three text-only templates for short announcement, short newsletter and long newsletter formats.

As ever, your suggestions for other resources are most welcome - just comment.

More on email formats | Tags: email design, text email

[This post brought to you by Campaigner Email Marketing]
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