Dec 11 2009

composing html in mac mail.app

This is a quick tip to demonstrate how to use HTML content in Mac Mail. I assume that everyone is aware of the various admonitions against using HTML to compose email, however I only use this for a relatively small mailing list of people whose mail clients recognize my email address. The question of how to do this came up recently as I was preparing to send off my annual holiday greeting.

Unlike Thunderbird and Outlook (and probably Entourage), Mac Mail does not provide any straightforward mechanism for composing HTML messages. There may have been a script, but I think it had been separated from the program during the upgrade to Snow Leopard. Nevertheless, I have found an easy way to accomplish this.

1. Compose the message in the HTML editor of your choice. You can even use CSS and probably Javascripting, though I have not tried the latter.

2. Upload the HTML file and any associated files to your web server.

3. Using Safari, surf to your page.

4. Choose File > Mail Contents of This Page:

fig1

5. This will begin a new message in Mail with the HTML neatly included, just as you had intended.

fig2

Happy Holidays!