For HTML email, maximum width should be 550 to 600 pixels to allow for the viewing space in most email programs and Web mail viewing areas. If the email is likely to be printed, like a donation receipt, you should keep to 550 pixels to ensure that the email will print on one page.
Text email should have hard returns after no more than 50-60 characters to make sure they look the way you intend in the reader’s email program. You can make yourself a guide for this by typing 60 X’s across the top of the text area and deleting them before sending the email.
Heather Gardner-Madras, gardner madras | strategic creative http://heathergm.com/
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Tuesday, 04 August 2009
Properly formatting your html emails is very important if you want to make sure that they appear how you expect in your constituent's email clients. Choosing things like height, width, graphic size and font style can make your message look sharp but if the formatting isn't right on just one aspect, the entire message could become skewed. Therefore, it's important to not only follow styling rules for your email blasts but also to test your email messages out on various email clients, providers and operating systems.
With regard to the email message itself, a general guideline if you are going to specify a width for your email is to keep the width between 450 and 650 pixels. Most email providers have windows that display this width well. If your email width goes beyond the window available to it in the email client, then your readers will have to scroll horizontally to see the entire message. This should be avoided not only because more information than necessary is hidden, but also because with the small amount of time that readers spend deciding whether or not to read each individual email, it isn't in an organization's best interest to require that reader extra scrolling just to see what the email message is about.
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