Formatting Plain Text Email.
In this post, we include tips and best practices to make plain text emails easier to read.
Insert Carriage Returns Properly and Use Automatic Formatting
It is important to correctly format your plain text emails. When formatted, they display properly in the various email programs used by Subscribers.
Our system can automatically fix some formatting problems with plain text messages.
Best Practices for using Plain Text:
Indent and insert a blank line before starting a new paragraph
The paragraphs below include a manually inserted Carriage Return at the end of each line.
This is the first sentence in this
paragraph. Paragraphs may be long
or short.
In this paragraph the first line is
indented. Indented and non-indented
sentences are allowed. White space within
the paragraph lines is ignored in
defining paragraphs. Only completely blank
lines are significant.
How to use Bold Face
Use asterisks at the beginning and end of *the passage you want to put in bold face*.
Result: Use asterisks at the beginning and end of the passage you want to put in bold face.
How to Underline
Use underscore characters at the beginning and end of the _underlined passage_.
Result: Use underscore characters at the beginning and end of the underlined passage.
How to Italicize
Put a slash character before and after the /italicized passage/.
Result: Put a slash character before and after the italicized passage.
How to create a Table of Contents
A) Ordered list item
B) Ordered list item
C) Ordered list item
----------------------------
i. Ordered list item
ii. Ordered list item
iii. Ordered list item
iv. Ordered list item
How to create a bulleted List of Items
Bullet points are not supported in plain text email, but you can use other characters, like -, *, or + instead.
- unordered list item
- unordered list item
- unordered list item
A few more tips:
- Keep your emails short. 600 words or less is a good rule of thumb.
- If you have more to say, send readers to your web page.
- Use whitespace appropriately to divide the message.
- Keep your email focused on one idea or message.
- Many short messages are better than 1 long message.
- Break the message into sections with headers. Examples:
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