equinux Mail Designer 1.3.4 User Manual

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Mail Designer

Contents

Pre-filling an image placeholder 18 Adding your own logos and signatures 18

.....................................Mail Designer: Tutorial Videos 4

.......................................................The Design Chooser 5

.............................................Mail Designer at a glance 6

....................................................The contents window 7

.....................................................Your first mail design 8

...................................................Creating a new design 8

.........................................Working with layout blocks 9

Layout blocks: working with text and image areas 9 Adding layout blocks 9

Removing layout blocks 10 Adding space in-between layout blocks 10

Duplicating layout blocks 10 Adjusting the size of areas within a layout block 11

Choosing a background for all text areas 14 Choosing a background for a single text area 14 Applying a background to a text column 14

.........................................Working with image areas 15

Adding objects 15 Duplicating objects 15

Resizing objects 16 Using objects with text 16 Adding photos 17

Image Placeholders 17 Adding an image placeholder 17

.........................................................Working with text 19

Editing a text area 19 Copy and Paste Style 19

To copy and paste a text style 19 Paste text and keep style 20

Editing text in an image area 20

.......................................................Working with links 21

Creating a text link 21 Creating an image link 21

..................................Saving and sending messages 22

Accessing designs in Mail 22 Resizing images 23

....................................Advanced design techniques 24

Combining graphics 24 Moving objects to the front or back 25 Grouping designs elements 25

..............................................Using text placeholders 26

Adding text placeholders 26

.........................Editing Business Edition stationery 27

...................................................Sharing your designs 28

Share as Mail Designer Document 28 Share as Apple Mail Stationery 28

..................................................................HTML Export 29

Offering your newsletter on the web 29 Export to other Email Marketing Tools 30

Example: Campaign Monitor 30 How to upload your HTML export to Campaign Monitor 30

............................Exporting a Design to MailChimp 31

Uploading a design to MailChimp 32 Using placeholders with MailChimp 33

MailChimp placeholders explained 33

.............Exporting a Design to Campaign Monitor 35

Uploading a design to Campaign Monitor 36 Using placeholders with Campaign Monitor 37

Campaign Monitor placeholders explained 37

.............................................Appendix: Compatibility 38

Compatibility examples and tips 38

.................................Appendix: Keyboard Shortcuts 39

Mail Designer: Tutorial Videos

Click the links below to watch Mail Designer tutorial videos, or visit equinux.com/support/maildesigner

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Customizing your layout Photos and placeholders

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Editing back- grounds

Editing

backgrounds

Editing Backgrounds Adding links

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The Design Chooser

Create a new mail using a Design Idea, tweak an existing stationery template or pick one of your saved designs to send.

Any mail designs you create will show up here

Access the design categories you have in Mail

Choose a design idea as a starting point for your design

Take a look at the additional Stationery Packs we offer for more inspiration

Start working on a new design based on the selected design idea

Use the zoom slider to take a closer look at the designs

Mail Designer at a glance

Add images, edit text and re-arrange your layout – in the main document window.

Show or hide the layout, distance indicators or rulers.

Hit ‘Send’ to open and send your design with Mail.

Quickly adjust your font, text spacing and other options using the fontpopover.

Grab a layout block by its handle and just drag ‘n drop to rearrange your layout.

Click here to go back to the Design Chooser to pick a new design to work on.

This is the distance between the element you’ve selected and the element your mouse is pointing at – handy for pixel-perfect adjustments.

Change the background color or add a background pattern and give your design a whole new look.

The contents window

Drag and drop new layout elements, graphics, text objects, placeholders, background patterns and photos into your design.

To add a layout block to a design, just drag and drop it into your design.

Drag graphics to your design and double-click the text to write your own.

Use image placeholders to add picture frame effects, or to resize or crop your images. You can also replace placeholders later in Mail.

Switch to background mode and drag in the texture you prefer.

Choose a text style, drag it into your design and then double-click to write your own text.

Add your own pictures from iPhoto, or your logos and signature from a folder.

Your first mail design

To get you started, we’re going to design a new email step-

by-step, explaining the options in detail as we go.

Creating a new design

We’re going to create an email design for a small business. As an example,

we're going to use a local guitar shop, Jim’s Guitars.

The owner, Jim, likes to keep his loyal customers up-to-date with the latest

guitar news and oﬀers. We’re going to use Mail Designer to design a custom

newsletter that Jim can use to keep in touch with his customers.

Mail Designer includes several “Design Ideas” – common email layouts that

can be used as a starting point for a new email. Since we want to have a

fairly simple, clean look, we'll start oﬀ with the "Prospectus" template. Just

double-click a design in the chooser window to create a new design based

on that design idea.

The design will open in a new window, ready for you to start editing:

Working with layout blocks

First, make sure you can see the layout by clicking

the “Layout” button in the toolbar. Click the Lay-

out button to show or hide the frames around the

stationery’s layout blocks.

You’ll notice a translucent tab attached to the left

side of each block. Those are the layout block

“handles”, each individual layout block has one. You

can rearrange a layout block by grabbing its handle

and dragging the layout block into another posi-

tion.

Layout blocks: working with text and image areas

Mail Designer oﬀers layout blocks that have text areas, image areas or both.

A text area can only contain text, while an image area can contain images,

photos, placeholders and styled text.

Layout block “handles”

Adding layout blocks

Click the “Contents” button to open the Contents panel. This contains all the

design elements you can add to your Mail Design. Go to “Layout Blocks”,

choose one and drag it to your Mail Design. The other layout sections will

slide out of the way so you can drop in the new layout block.

Drag a layout block into your design.

Layout block with an image area

background and image areas

Layout block with text area

Layout block with text and image areasA layout block with text, text with

The other blocks will slide out of the way and you can drop the new layout block into place.

Removing layout blocks

Click the “x” icon on the layout block “handle” to

delete a layout block.

Adding space in-between layout blocks

You can then ﬁne-tune the size of the divider by dragging the line above or

between it - it should look right with about 30 pixels between the two layout

blocks.

You'll notice that your new layout block is very

close to the top of the next layout block. This makes

the design feel a bit cramped, so we need to add a

bit of space in between the two blocks.

We need to add space in-between these two layout blocks

Go back to the Contents panel and drag the spac-

ing layout block in-between the two content lay-

out blocks.

Click “x” to delete

Duplicating layout blocks

If you are setting up multiple similar layout blocks, it may be easier to dupli-

cate an existing layout block instead of choosing your font and color options

again.

There are two ways you can duplicate layout blocks.

‣

Click the selection tab at the side of a layout block and choose “Edit > Duplicate” from the menu bar

Click the selection tab to choose a layout block - then choose Duplicate from the Edit menu

‣

Hold down the option key on your keyboard and click and drag a layout block.

Drop it into position to create a copy of that layout block. Then edit your text

and other options accordingly.

Adjusting the size of areas within a layout block

You can also adjust the width and height of layout blocks, or of sections

within a layout block as well.

Just drag the dividers to adjust the width of a section within a layout block.

In a text area, you can adjust the height by adding or deleting lines of text.

In an image area, drag the dividers to adjust the height of the area.

Choosing a background

There's a paint roller icon in the lower left corner of the window. Click it to

switch to the background editing mode. When choosing a background, you

will see two areas: the background of your text areas in the middle of your

design and the surrounding background area:

Drag a color or texture to this area to set your main background

Drag a color or texture to the inner area of your design, to choose a background for your text areas

To apply a background color

Click the "Color" bucket icon to open the color picker window. Click a color

or drag it onto the background to apply it.

Click the paint roller icon to switch between background and layout views

Choose a texture or color

Click the 'Textures' or the 'Colors' icons to choose a

background texture or a single background color to

apply to your design.

Choose a texture or color

To apply a background texture

For our email, we're going to use a dark black background wallpaper texture.

Click the paint roller icon to switch to background mode:

Next, click the textures icon to bring up the Contents panel and open the

background textures. Then drag a texture to your background to apply it.

Custom backgrounds

You can also use one of your own photos or texture images as a

background: choose the “Photos” section in the Contents panel and

drag your photo or texture image to the background to apply it.

Alternatively, drag in an image from the Finder, or copy and paste a

image to set your background.

Applying a background to a text area

You can also choose a background texture or background color for the text

areas in your design.

Choosing a background for all text areas

Switch to background mode by clicking the paint roller icon in the bottom

left corner of your design. Apply a background to the middle area to apply it

to all of the text areas in your design.

Choosing a background for a single text area

Choose a layout block area and click the background paint roller icon for

that layout block. Now you can choose to apply (or remove) a background

for just that text area.

Applying a background to a text column

Creating transparent background eﬀects

If you would like to create design eﬀects by giving some layout blocks a

“transparent” background, try this:

‣

Click the paint roller icon in the bottom left corner of your document

‣

Choose the middle background for all text areas

‣

Right-click and choose “Delete Background” from the shortcut menu

Now all of your text areas will appear with no background. Leave back-

ground selection and now selectively apply a background to all layout

blocks, expect those that you wish to remain “transparent”:

‣

Choose layout blocks, except those that are to appear “transparent”

‣

Click their individual paint roller icons

‣

Apply a background

Some text areas can be assigned a separate

background. This can be used to create side-

bars with links or other at-a-glance informa-

tion.

Text areas that support backgroundsare high-

lighted in green in the Contents panel.

A layout block with a text area that uses a custom background

Applying a background to an image area

You can also change the backgrounds of image areas individually. Select an

image area and click the paint roller icon to switch to background mode.

Then drag a background texture or color into the image area to apply it.

Example

In this example, a white background has been applied to all layout blocks,

expect the “Jim’s Guitar News” header, allowing it to appear as though it is

ﬂoating above the rest of the content.

Working with image areas

Image areas can contain images, photos, placeholders and stylized text – so

you can really let your creativity ﬂow.

Image areas are highlighted in blue in the Contents panel:

Layout block with text and image areasLayout block with an image area

You can drag graphics, image placeholders, photos and stylized text to these

areas in your design. Mail Designer will highlight those areas that you can

drop images into.

Graphics and other objects

Mail Designer includes graphics that you can use to spruce up your email

design. These include sales promotion artwork as well as border designs.

Adding objects

To add graphics or another object, simply choose one from the Contents

panel and drag it into an image area in your mail design.

Duplicating objects

You can duplicate objects by choosing Edit >

Duplicate from the menu bar. Alternatively,

you can also hold down the option key and

drag the object to place a duplicate in your

design.

Hold down the Option key and drag to duplicate an object

Resizing objects

Using objects with text

You can also resize and adjust graphics using the resize controls. Click a

graphic to see the resize controls.

Then just drag the graphic to the size you would like it to be.

Adjust the size of graphics using the resize controls

Resizing from the center

If you hold down the option key while resizing a graphic, it will be resized

evenly from the center (i.e. it will be resized in from the edge you’re dragging

as well as from the opposite edge).

Resizing without constraining proportions

Ordinarily, Mail Designer preserves the proportions of a graphic when you

resize it. However, you can also optionally also choose to disregard the pro-

portions while resizing.

Some of the objects may contain text. You can double-click the text to re-

place it with your own.

We’re going to use one of these graphics to create a cool header for our Mail

Design.

Choose “Graphics” in the Contents panel and choose the red “Newsletter”

image and drag it into the header section:

Double-click the “Newsletter” text and we can type in a custom name. You

can also choose to a font and make it bigger or smaller to ﬁt the available

space:

Hold down the Command key and resize a graphic or image to resize it

without preserving its proportions.

Hold down the Command or Option keys while resizing for more options

Photos

As everyone knows, a picture is worth a thousand words. Photos are a great

way to grab your readers attention and immediately let them know what the

email is about.

Adding photos

Open the Contents panel and choose "Photos". The photos tab gives you

quick access your iPhoto and Aperture libraries, as well as other folders that

contain images.

To add an image, just drag it into an image area.

Open the Image placeholders tab in the

content window. Mail Designer includes

plain placeholders, framed placeholders and

even masking eﬀect placeholders, like the t-

shirt or ﬂag designs.

Adding an image placeholder

Pick the image placeholder style that you

would like to use and drag it into your de-

sign. You'll notice that Mail Designer has

highlighted the image areas again, so you

know which areas you can add your place-

holder to.

Once you've dragged your image into an image area, you can use the or-

ange resize controls along the edge of your picture to resize it.

Image Placeholders

For greater ﬂexibility, Mail Designer also includes image placeholders that

can be used to crop or resize a picture and also oﬀer interesting frame de-

signs and masking eﬀects.

This blue rectangle is the image placeholder we have added. It will show up

in Mail as a blank area that you can use to drop your own images or photos

onto.

Pre-ﬁlling an image placeholder

Adding your own logos and signatures

You can also pre-ﬁll an image placeholder – this image will show up even if

you don't add your own photo to a placeholder in Mail. Confused yet? Don't

worry, it'll make sense once you see it

in action.

Double-click the image placeholder

we just added. You'll see the image

zoom slider show up underneath, so

you'll know you can now pre-deﬁne

this image placeholder's image.

Now, just drag a photo onto this image

placeholder and it will be set as the default image for this particular image

placeholder. You can always replace this image later in Mail.

You probably have logos or a scan of your signature that you would like to

frequently use in a your mails designs.

You can add these to the “Photos” section of the Contents panel, so you’ll be

able to get to them faster.

Go to the Photos section and

right-click underneath the pre-

deﬁned folders that are listed.

Then choose a folder with your

images that you would like to

add.

There you go! Now you can easily access your logos and other company im-

ages directly within the Contents panel.

Working with text

With the design more or less complete, it's now time to work on the text of

your email. Mail Designer makes it easy to create an email that you can then

tweak and adjust in Mail for individual recipients, without requiring you to

re-enter boilerplate text (e.g. contact details, product description signature,

website link) every time you send an email.

What can text areas do?

There are two kinds of layout blocks in Mail Designer: text areas and

image areas. Image areas can contain both text and images, while

text areas can only include text.

You can edit a text area later in Mail, whereas text in image areas can

only be altered in Mail Designer.

Editing a text area

To edit a text area in your message, just click inside a text area and start typ-

ing – simple! You can also adjust your font and text ﬂow options by selecting

text and choosing your options from the popover.

Copy and Paste Style

If you have added additional layout elements, you may want to copy and

paste your existing font style into your new layout elements.

To copy and paste a text style

Select the text that has the style you would like to copy, then right-click and

choose “Copy Style”.

Then choose the text you would like to apply the copied style to, right-click

and select “Paste Style”:

For now, I'm just going to enter a rough draft of my text and I'll do the ﬁne-

tuning later when I send this message using Mail.

There you go: the text style (including font option, text color and bold set-

tings) has been pasted onto your new text:

Paste text and keep style

Editing text in an image area

Any text you paste into Mail Designer will automatically receive the style of

the text area you’re pasting in to.

If you would like to preserve your text style, you can use the “Paste with

Style” command instead.

To paste and preserve the original style of your text

‣

Copy text that has formatting you want to preserve

‣

Choose “Edit > Paste With Style” from the menu bar

A note about font options

If you're in a text area, the font options in the popover only include

so-called "web-safe fonts". These are fonts that can be viewed on

most computers. If you're adding text to an image area, you can

choose from a wider selection of fonts, as these will be displayed as

part of an image, ensuring their compatibility with most email pro-

grams.

In an image area, Mail Designer oﬀers more ﬂexibility and you can get really

creative with your text. Let's try out some creative ideas!

Open the Contents panel and choose "Text objects".

First, we have the plain-jane "Sans"

and "Serif" text elements that you can

drag in to an image area to enter basic

text. Click and drag the text box

around to position it the way you

want and choose your font and text

alignment options as before.

We have also created a few other text

styles using diﬀerent fonts and colors.

Drag any of these text objects into an

image area and double-click it to edit

the text.

Special Characters

You’ll notice that some of the text objects use special characters like these: ★ ♫.

You can ﬁnd lots more of these types of characters under “Edit >

Special Characters…”

Select text somewhere in an image area, choose a special character

and click “Insert” to add it to your text.

Working with links

You can include links to your website, ﬁle downloads or other resources on

the web in your design. Mail Designer support links for image areas as well

as text links.

Creating a text link

Mark the text that you would like to turn into a link. Then click the arrow link

in the popover. A dialog will slide in and you can enter your link.

Select some text and click the link button.

Then enter your URL in the Link destination dialog box:

Creating an image link

You can create a link with an image area, so the image area will be clickable

in your email. It’s important to note, that as an entire image areas will be

displayed as a single image in your email, you can only assign one link per

image area.

To create an image area link, choose an image area in your design and click

the arrow link button from the popover. Then just enter your URL. The entire

image area will be “hot” and can be clicked in your ﬁnal message.

Note: you can change the color and text options of your link using the regu-

lar font options.

Multiple links

We’ve included several layout blocks that contain several image ar-

eas next to each other.

You can use these blocks to create multiple image area links, e.g. in

order to use multiple buttons with links to social media sites.

Saving and sending messages

Saving your design

Once your design is ﬁnished, you can save it to re-use later.

Sending emails with your design

With the ﬁnal graphical touches added, our email design is ready to be sent.

There are two ways you can go about sending messages:

Preparing your message

Choose “File > Save” from the menu bar. You can give your new stationery a

name and choose a new or previously existing category to save it in:

You’ll ﬁnd your design in the Design Chooser under the category you saved

it in, or you can also see all the designs you’ve created under “My Designs”.

Choose your design and click “Edit” to edit or send that design.

Click the Send button in the toolbar to open your design in Apple Mail. You

may notice Mail brieﬂy quits and re-opens, in order to allow Mail Designer to

add your new design to Mail.

Your design will be opened in a new Mail compose window. You now have

an opportunity to change the text and replace any image placeholders you

may have in your Mail Design.

Accessing designs in Mail

You can also open your design directly from within Apple Mail. Open a New

Message window and click “Show Stationery”. Then, scroll to the category

your picked to open your design.

To edit or replace your text

To replace a placeholder image

Click into one of the text areas. You’ll notice that Mail has selected the entire

block of text. Press the right arrow key on your keyboard once. You can now

use the arrow keys to move the cursor into the position you want to start

editing your text:

If you have image placeholders in your design, you now also have the option

of replacing your placeholder images.

Just drag a photo or image into the placeholder.

Resizing images

If you notice that your new photo isn’t quite the right size for your place-

holders, just click it once to bring up Mail’s image resizing controls. Drag the

zoom slider to zoom your image in or out.

Tip

If you start typing while the entire block of text is selected, you’ll de-

lete your entire placeholder text. If you accidentally cleared your

text, just hit Command+Z on your keyboard to undo and restore

your placeholder text.

You may ﬁnd it easier to write your entire message in Mail Designer, rather

than in the Mail application. Just choose your saved design in Mail Designer,

edit your text and hit “Send”.

You can also click and drag your image to re-position it in the placeholders,

e.g. to focus on another part of the image.

Advanced design techniques

We’ve covered the basic, so let’s look at some of the slightly

more advanced layout and design techniques you can apply

to your email designs.

Combining design elements

You can create some interesting eﬀects by combining multiple design ele-

ments. Mail Designer can arrange objects in layers, so you can stack objects

on top of each other for eye-catching looks.

Combining graphics

Let’s say we have a big sales event on July 16th that we want to announce.

We can highlight that date visually by combining the calendar text element

with a graphic element to highlight the speciﬁc date.

Drag in the July Calendar text object:

Finally, grab the black circle by the orange adjustment handles, resize it, and

then click and drag it into position over July 16th.

Now go to the graphics and drag the black marker circle onto the calendar:

Perfect! A great visual reminder to let customers know to check out the

event on July 16th!

Moving objects to the front or back

Grouping designs elements

Once you start combining design elements, you may want to place certain

objects in image areas in front of or behind other objects.

Moving objects

Select an object and click the “Front” or “Back”

button in the toolbar. For more granular control

over your layers, you can also choose “Arrange >

Bring Forward” or “Send Backward” from the

menu bar.

For instance, in order to place this “May edition” text object in front of the

“Newsletter” banner, I right-click it and choose “Bring forward”:

You can also group design elements together, making it easier to move ele-

ments that belong together around in your design.

To group elements together

Drag across two or more elements to select them together and then choose

“Group” from the toolbar. Here I’ve selected three elements: the “Sale” text,

the description and price and the strikethrough line:

You can now move the elements around together, and they’ll be treated as

one single element, making it much easier to move them around in my de-

sign:

That will place it in front of the “Newsletter” banner:

Ungroup the included text objects

Several of the text objects that we include are images and text ob-

jects grouped together. You can ungroup these for greater control

over the look of a certain element – just select “Ungroup” from the

toolbar.

Using text placeholders

Placeholder

Inserts

Full Name

The sender’s full name as set in the

Address Book

First Name

The sender’s ﬁrst name as set in

Address Book

The sender’s email address as set in

Address Book

Short Date

Today’s date in short form (e.g.

07.06.2011). The date formatting is

determined by your System

Preferences.

Long Date

Today’s date in long form (e.g.

Friday, 15. July 2011). The date

formatting is determined by your

System Preferences.

Mail Designer has the ability to use placeholders for text, so common snip-

pets such as your name or the date can automatically be inserted into your

email text.

Adding text placeholders

Choose “Insert” in the menu bar and choose one of the ﬁve available place-

holders: Full Name, First Name, Email, Short Date or Long Date.

Alternatively, you can also right-click and insert a placeholder:

You can choose from one of the following placeholders:

Once inserted, the placeholder will be automatically replaced once you go

to send your message in Mail:

While layout view is enabled, you’ll be shown the text placeholder. Turn oﬀ

layout view to see the ﬁnal text.

Editing Business Edition stationery

If you own Stationery Pack Business Edition, you can also

adjust and save personalized copies of those templates.

Most businesses frequently need to send out the same email, with only mi-

nor changes in the content. Now there is a way to write an email once and

then save that email as a new template for easy re-use in Mail.

We’ve updated your Business Edition templates so they can be edited and

customized with Mail Designer.

You can customize:

How to customize a Business Edition design

In the Design Chooser window, look under the “My Library” heading. Those

are all of the stationery pack templates you currently have in Mail.

Pick a Business Edition stationery design and choose “Edit a Copy”.

The layout of the email

•

Text and font options (including disclaimers, contact details, etc.)

•

Photos and image placeholders

•

You won’t be able to easily change backgrounds or certain graphics.

If you ﬁnd yourself running into limitations when trying to edit a Stationery

Pack design, you may want to try creating a similar design using a Design

Idea instead.

More Designs?

Click the “Stationery Pack” heading to see all the Stationery Packs

equinux has to oﬀer.

You can choose templates from Packs you have purchased or dis-

cover and preview new Packs. You’ll be able to edit the text and pho-

tos in other templates, however the layout will be ﬁxed.

Edit the layout, your text and image placeholders in the email and choose

“File > Save”. Pick a name for your edited template and choose the category

you would like to save it in.

You’ll now be able to access this edited template and send it out without

having to make major changes every time you want to use it.

Sharing your designs

Share your latest stationery with your friends and

colleagues, so they can send their own messages based on

your designs.

Mail designer oﬀers several ways of sharing your design.

Share as Mail Designer Document

This option will create a ﬁle that can be opened in Mail Designer on another

Mac. This gives you more ﬂexibility, but also means you'll need to have Mail

Designer installed on the Mac you send the ﬁle to.

Share as Apple Mail Stationery

If you choose this option, Mail Designer will create a ﬁle that can be opened

in Apple Mail and doesn't require Mail Designer to be installed.

The person opening the design will be asked to pick a category for the new

design. Once it’s been added to Mail Designer or Apple Mail, they’ll be able

to send their own emails, based on your design.

Choose Share from the menu bar to export or email your design.

HTML Export

Mail Designer can export a HTML ﬁle containing your

design. You can re-use your design with other services, or

publish a copy as a webpage.

Once you have created your design, you can export it as HTML. This will al-

low you to do even more with your design:

Upload your design to third-party newsletter services

•

Oﬀer readers with email programs that don’t support HTML the option to

• view your message as a webpage in their browser

Link to your newsletter directly from your website, for people that would

• like to see a newsletter before they subscribe

To export your design as a HTML document

‣

Open your design

‣

Choose “Share > HTML…” from the menu bar

Oﬀering your newsletter on the web

You can upload the exported HTML and image ﬁles to a web host. This

would allow your readers to open your message in their web browser. This

can be be used to give readers an alternative way to read your message, if

their email application doesn’t support advanced HTML messages.

To oﬀer your newsletter on the web:

‣

Export your design as a HTML document

‣

Upload the exported folder to a web server (via FTP, or tools oﬀered by your host)

‣

Add a link to the web version of your newsletter in your email

‣

Choose a location to save your design

‣

Optional: If you plan on uploading your images to a separate web server, you can enter an absolute URL preﬁx for images.

Mail Designer will create a folder containing the HTML ﬁle and images that make up your newsletter.

Export to other Email Marketing Tools

There are dozens of email and newsletter services that support HTML emails.

If your newsletter provider supports custom HTML templates with images,

you may be able to export your design from Mail Designer and import into

into your tool of choice.

Preparing your design for import

Depending on your service, you may need to do import your design in one

of the following ways:

‣

Create and upload a compressed zip archive containing all of the ﬁles you exported from Mail Designer

‣

Upload your HTML ﬁle and a separate zip ﬁle containing all of your images

‣

Copy & paste the contents of your HTML ﬁle and upload your images

‣

Upload all of the exported ﬁles individually

Getting help with other email marketing tools

This manual Can only outline the basic steps required to upload a

design to a email marketing tool. As every newsletter service works

diﬀerently, you’ll need to consult the documentation provided by

your newsletter service to see if it is possible to import custom HTML

templates and how they recommend you upload your design.

Example: Campaign Monitor

Here we’ll show you how to use a design with Campaign Monitor.

How to upload your HTML export to Campaign Monitor

‣

Export your design using Mail Designer’s HTML export

‣

Go to the folder with your exported design

‣

Select the image ﬁles in your exported design folder and create an archive containing all the .jpeg and .png ﬁles

‣

Go to the Templates section and create a new template

‣

Choose the “content.html” ﬁle in the folder with your exported design and upload it as your HTML page in Campaign Monitor

‣

Choose the zip archive you create earlier and upload it

Exporting a Design to MailChimp

If you’ve created a newsletter design that you want to email

to large number of users, you might want to send it out with

MailChimp – a professional email marketing service.

While you can send your newsletter directly to your readers from Apple Mail,

most email providers won’t allow you to send emails to hundreds or thou-

sands of readers at a time. That’s where MailChimp comes in. This service can

send emails to large numbers of newsletter subscribers at a time.

MailChimp oﬀers free accounts to get you

started, with paid accounts available for

users with larger numbers of subscribers.

To start using MailChimp

You’ll be asked to enter your MailChimp API key:

To add your API key:

‣

Go to the MailChimp website and sign in to your MailChimp account

‣

Choose “Account > API keys & authorized apps” from the menu

‣

Copy your API key

‣

Paste it into Mail Designer

First you’ll need a free MailChimp account, so head over to their website to

→ http://www.equinux.com/goto/maildesigner-mailchimp-signup

Once you have a MailChimp account, open one of your templates in Mail

Designer and choose “MailChimp template” from the share menu:

Mail Designer can store your API key in your keychain, so you should only

need to set this up once.

API Key?

In order to add new templates to your MailChimp account, Mail

Designer needs your MailChimp account API key, which will allow it

to upload templates on your behalf.

Uploading a design to MailChimp

Once your account has been conﬁgured, your designs can be uploaded to

your MailChimp account. Choose a name to save your design as and click

export:

Your design will then be uploaded to your MailChimp account. You can then

view it on the MailChimp website to see how it looks and use the new tem-

plate in your MailChimp marketing campaigns.

However, it is possible that you may see some minor discrepancies with re-

gards to the exact ﬂow and formatting of your text (e.g. a paragraph may

take up four lines of text instead of three) and MailChimp’s editing preview

can also sometimes display things slightly diﬀerently.

MailChimp Editing and Compatibility

Editing

MailChimp also oﬀers an online editing tool. However, it is usually easier to

use Mail Designer for all editing and to simply upload your edited document

when you’re ﬁnished.

Just be sure to export your edited template with a new name, as Mail

Designer can’t overwrite templates already uploaded to MailChimp.

Compatibility

When Mail Designer documents are exported to MailChimp, the HTML for-

matting is re-interpreted by MailChimp’s HTML engine.

We have tested compatibility thoroughly and have strived to ensure that

designs are exported as accurately as possible.

For a more precise preview, use MailChimp’s “popup preview” feature or

send yourself a test message through MailChimp once you have created

your campaign, before sending it to recipients.

Using placeholders with MailChimp

Placeholder

Description

Address and vCard

Your details, as stored in your

MailChimp account.

Includes your address and a

download link for your vCard

Current Year

Inserts the current year

Date

Inserts the current date

First Name

Adds the recipients ﬁrst name

Forward

Include a link that can be clicked for

forward your newsletter to other

recipients

Last Name

Adds the recipients last name

List Address

Adds your address, as stored for a

particular list

List Company

Adds your company name, as

stored for a particular list

List Description

Includes a description of why your

customers are receiving this email,

as stored for a particular list.

List Phone

Include your phone number, as

stored for a particular list

Recipients Email

Adds the recipients email address

Unsubscribe

Adds an unsubscribe link

User Address

Add your postal address, as stored

in your MailChimp account

User Company

Add your company name, as stored

in your MailChimp account

MailChimp can use “placeholders” or “merge tags” in your design to auto-

matically insert personalized details into your message.

To use MailChimp placeholders

‣

Go to a text area within your design

‣

Right-click and choose “Insert Placeholder > MailChimp “

‣

Choose the placeholder you would like to add

A placeholder will be inserted into your text, which will later be replaced

with information from your MailChimp account.

MailChimp placeholders explained

Placeholder

Description

User Phone

Add your phone number, as stored

in your MailChimp account

equinux Mail Designer 1.3.4 User Manual

Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual