In5 to mailchimp html

Question

I use mailchimp for newsletters. I would like to import my IN5 html, but is does not work. Can anybody help me.

Answer 1

HTML for email is a completely different beast than HTML for the web. Most email clients only support a very limited version of HTML (technology available circa 1999). They're not able to support absolute positioning, interactivity (javascript), embedded fonts, or externally linked files (css, javascript).

We don't recommend using in5 with HTML emails.

More info on HTML emails:
http://kb.mailchimp.com/article/how-to-code-html-emails

Chris Converse has a good course for creating responsive HTML emails on Lynda.com that might be helpful.

Comments

Hi Justin, you wrote this a few years ago--is it still the case that using In5 to create HTML email is a bad idea? Even if we stay away from the more obvious unsupported things?

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Yes, still relevant. Email clients aren't much smarter than they were previously in terms of HTML, Javascript will always be restricted in email because of security concerns, and unfortunately, you always have to play to the lowest common denominator because you don't know which email clients people are using.

The web, on the other hand is pretty evolved and it's quite safe to assume nearly everyone has a modern browser. Even Microsoft shifted away from IE for quite some time ago.

The only update to that article was that we now make it possible to create animated GIFs from in5, which can be useful in emails.