Best Practices for The PoliteMail Builder

Applies To: ■ PoliteMail Desktop ■ PoliteMail Online ■ PoliteMail M365

Version: ■ 4.9 ■ 5.0 ■ 5.1+

If you have a template you have already sent, it may be tempting to open your Sent folder and modify the sent template or use a copy you have received. Once an email has been processed through Outlook, it re-writes it and adds its own HTML and styling, which can overwrite or replace the code you used to build the original template in the PoliteMail Builder. The further the template is removed from the original, and the more it gets rewritten and the more likely it is to have issues with formatting and styling.
As a best practice, save your template in the PoliteMail Builder and use it for all new messages. We recommend saving your template when you have added all the body sections, but before you have added text and images. This "skeleton" template can be used as the basis for further templates. We then recommend saving your template again before sending it out. You should now have two copies of the template in the Pages tab, the original skeleton one, and the one that you've completed. Use either one of these to compose future emails.

When pasting HTML into a Template, work with gridlines turned off; this reduces the chance of the Builder adjusting the gridlines and throwing off your design. Once imported, you can turn the gridlines back on if you prefer.

Avoid changing or resizing the gridlines created by the PoliteMail Builder. Adjusting the table tools and HTML may break the structure of the Template.

All images should be resized before they are added to the new message. This will ensure that the template keeps it's coding structure and does not break. When you add a body section to a new message, you will see the image placeholder dimension sizes.
For best performance, import and save your images on the PoliteMail server and add them to your new messages by dragging and dropping them onto a new message. Using the saved images will decrease your email size, and will also ensure that other users have access to them if they are shared.

As with images, using forwarded links will skew your metrics count and may cause some of your links to break. As a best practice, use the PoliteMail Builder to create and save links. Under the Content tab, click on the Links button and use the Add Links command to create a new link. Once the link has been saved, you can drag and drop it into your New Message.