Saving emails as an HTML file

G

Garret Swayne

Outlook allows you to save outgoing emails that you're composing as an HTML
file using the Save As function. That file (characterized by an .htm
extension) can later be imported into other email programs in order to send
the message out with the desired Rich Text or other HTML content.
I use a dedicated emailing program (MailThem Pro) to send out my emails one
at a time to all the people on my mailing list. That program requires an
HTML file for it to properly format the email in Rich Text before sending it
out. So I compose the emails in Outlook in HTML format (as opposed to Plain
Text) with all the Rich Text content I want (different fonts, boldface,
italics, etc.). I then save the formatted file as HTML and then import it
into MailThem Pro which sends out my formatted message to my mailing list.
However, the HTML code that is generated by Outlook using its Save As
function is so incredibly dense that a simple message of a few lines in
plain text can take up to 200k once it's encoded into HTML by Outlook.
Someone told me that what's happening is that the HTML encoder in Outlook
explicitly sets to its default value, every possible obscure tag in the HTML
standard, whether that tag or parameter is used in that message or not. So
the simplest of messages ends up with lines and lines of obscure HTML code
that sometimes cause unpredictable results in different computers. I have a
rudamentary knowledge of HTML, but I can't begin to decipher this code, it's
so obstruse! And several of my friends report very unusual effects from
opening my emails--from the message not opening at all, to the message
opening but not displaying any visible contents, to the message opening, but
crashing an unrelated application that was open on their computer. I have
pretty good virus protection on my computer, so I don't think I have any
sort of lurking virus or worm. I suspect it's this overly dense HTML code
that's generated by Outlook and perhaps choking the more primitive HTML
interpreters on certain computers. Is that possible?
Is there any way that the HTML encoder of Outlook could be altered to
generate a less "thorough" HTML implementation for such saved messages? Or
is there any other way around this problem? Are there any tools out there,
free or otherwise, that might give me a simpler HTML implementation of the
messages I compose in Outlook. By the way, if it makes a difference, the
version of Outlook I use is Outlook 2002.
I'd really appreciate any help or insight...

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Garret Swayne
(e-mail address removed)
www.garretswayne.com
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
 
C

Chuck Davis

Garret Swayne said:
Outlook allows you to save outgoing emails that you're composing as an
HTML file using the Save As function. That file (characterized by an .htm
extension) can later be imported into other email programs in order to
send the message out with the desired Rich Text or other HTML content.
I use a dedicated emailing program (MailThem Pro) to send out my emails
one at a time to all the people on my mailing list. That program requires
an HTML file for it to properly format the email in Rich Text before
sending it out. So I compose the emails in Outlook in HTML format (as
opposed to Plain Text) with all the Rich Text content I want (different
fonts, boldface, italics, etc.). I then save the formatted file as HTML
and then import it into MailThem Pro which sends out my formatted message
to my mailing list.
However, the HTML code that is generated by Outlook using its Save As
function is so incredibly dense that a simple message of a few lines in
plain text can take up to 200k once it's encoded into HTML by Outlook.
Someone told me that what's happening is that the HTML encoder in Outlook
explicitly sets to its default value, every possible obscure tag in the
HTML standard, whether that tag or parameter is used in that message or
not. So the simplest of messages ends up with lines and lines of obscure
HTML code that sometimes cause unpredictable results in different
computers. I have a rudamentary knowledge of HTML, but I can't begin to
decipher this code, it's so obstruse! And several of my friends report
very unusual effects from opening my emails--from the message not opening
at all, to the message opening but not displaying any visible contents, to
the message opening, but crashing an unrelated application that was open
on their computer. I have pretty good virus protection on my computer, so
I don't think I have any sort of lurking virus or worm. I suspect it's
this overly dense HTML code that's generated by Outlook and perhaps
choking the more primitive HTML interpreters on certain computers. Is
that possible?
Is there any way that the HTML encoder of Outlook could be altered to
generate a less "thorough" HTML implementation for such saved messages?
Or is there any other way around this problem? Are there any tools out
there, free or otherwise, that might give me a simpler HTML implementation
of the messages I compose in Outlook. By the way, if it makes a
difference, the version of Outlook I use is Outlook 2002.
I'd really appreciate any help or insight...

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Garret Swayne
(e-mail address removed)
www.garretswayne.com
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Garrett,
I create HTML e-mail newsletter using FrontPage and then copy and paste into
an Outlook message. You may see the results at:
http://www.anthemwebs.com/communitynews.htm#Previous_issues

I would assume that you could just as easily import the FrontPage file into
MailThem Pro. If you don't have FrontPage and don't want to shell out the
dollars, try the WYSIWYG web authoring program NVU. It is free from
http://www.nvu.com/index.php
 
G

Garret Swayne

Chuck, thank you so much! Yes I do have FrontPage, and yes, I tried it and
it works! And it generates much tighter HTML than Outlook used to do. .
Like 27KB instead of almost 140KB, the old way. I really appreciate your
help. Thanks!
-Garret
 
C

Chuck Davis

Garret Swayne said:
Chuck, thank you so much! Yes I do have FrontPage, and yes, I tried it
and it works! And it generates much tighter HTML than Outlook used to do.
. Like 27KB instead of almost 140KB, the old way. I really appreciate
your help. Thanks!
-Garret
You are welcome!
 

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