HTML Email Creation

Sending HTML email is one of many useful features in PCRecruiter. This feature underwent great improvements in 2002 (most notably the addition of embedded images), so you'll want to make sure you have updated PCRecruiter to the latest version in order to get the most powerful tools.

In most cases, sending an HTML letter is a simple matter of opening your created HTML page in a web browser (like Internet Explorer), selecting everything (Ctrl-A) and pasting the content into the Letters area of PCRecruiter (Ctrl-v). This should work regardless of whether your letter is on your local drive or a website, and all images and links should remain in tact. You can use the "Insert Fields" button to merge data from records into form letters just as you would with a non-HTML email.

Caveats

There are a few important exceptions to be aware of. Firstly, a lot of the consistency between an original HTML email and its PCRecruiter counterpart depends on how the original HTML was created. MS Word, for example, tends to add a great deal of Microsoft-specific and primarily unnecessary code into the HTML, which PCR will be unable to parse. A document copied from Word into PCRecruiter may lose its included images, for example. We highly recommend building your HTML mails in a dedicated editor such as Microsoft FrontPage, Macromedia Dreamweaver, etc. (and ideally, reading up on HTML so that you can do more advanced design tweaks manually).

In addition, some specialized and interactive items such as fill-in forms, Javascripts (image rollovers and the like), Flash movies, etc. will not work in an HTML letter, PCRecruiter-based or otherwise. Such things are considered security hazards by any decent mail program and will either be non-functional or completely erased on receipt. Some mail programs will not even download mail containing these sorts of elements. You should restrict your form letter design to text, links, images and simple tables. This also helps non-HTML compliant mail programs (e.g. AOL Mail pre-v.6.0 and a number of corporate email systems) to display your email.

Pasting Images from Microsoft Word

As mentioned above, you may have a difficult time when copying and pasting images (letterheads, logos, etc.) from Microsoft Word into PCRecruiter. This method may help:

1. Open the Word document
2. Right-click on the image and choose "Edit Picture"
3. Open the File menu and choose "Save As Web Page"
4. Name the file and save it somewhere on the computer
5. Open your blank email in PCRecruiter
6. Right-click in the composition area and choose "Insert Image"
7. Browse to the location where you saved the Word document. You should see a "_files" folder with the same name as your document... for example, if your document is "letter.htm", there will be a folder called "letter_files"
8. Open this folder. The images from your Word document will be inside.

Handling Stylesheets

What are stylesheets?

Simply put, stylesheets are an increasingly common method used to pre-define typefaces for an entire page or website by simple names, saving design time and loading speed. Rather than manually setting the font to 'dark blue 10-point bold Arial' wherever necessary, the designer can define a 'style' called "smallblue" with those specifications. Then, wherever that style is required in the site, the designer would simply mark the text as "smallblue". When the page is viewed, the web browser looks for the definition of "smallblue" in the stylesheet code and assigns the 'dark blue 10-point bold Arial' style to the text. Another major advantage to stylesheets is that, if the designer later decides that they want all dark blue text in the site to be dark red, they simply alter the "smallblue" line in the stylesheet and all text marked as "smallblue" everywhere in the site will change to the new color.

How can I tell if my HTML page uses a stylesheet?

Stylesheet definitions do not get transferred by the normal copy and paste method, so fonts, colors and sizes in your letter will look much different in PCRecruiter than they do in the original. Most commonly, all fonts will revert to the 'Times New Roman' default. To set things right, you will need to copy the style definitions from your HTML source code into PCRecruiter manually. This isn't as complicated as it sounds.

To copy stylesheet information:

1. Copy and paste your HTML letter into PCRecruiter as usual. If a stylesheet is in use, you should find that the fonts are not correct.
2. Return to your original document and view the HTML source code. In FrontPage you will find a "Source" tab at the bottom of the screen. If you are viewing the letter in Internet Explorer, choose "Source" from the "View" menu.
3. Locate the stylesheet section near the top of the HTML code. You will see two 'tags' that say <style> and </style>. They are located above the <body> tag, and between the <head> and </head> tags.
4. Highlight and copy the <style> and </style> tags, and everything in between them.
5. Return to your PCRecruiter HTML form letter.
6. Click the "View Source" button. In the web version of PCRecruiter, select "View Source" from the "Background Properties" button, found at the right side the toolbar below the spell check button.
7. Locate the <head> and </head> tags at the top of the HTML code.
8. Paste your copied style information between the head tags.
9. Click "Return to Web Page" ("View HTML" in the desktop version) to view the page. You should see the correct type styles at this point.

<link rel="stylesheet" href="mystyles.css" type="text/css">

The 'href="stylesheet.css"' part of this tag is the pointer to the stylesheet file, which is, in this case, called "mystyles.css." Keep in mind that the displayed location is relative to the website that the page came from, so if your HTML document came from http://www.mysite.com, you would want to alter the line to read "http://www.mysite.com/mystyles.css" in your form letter. The address needs to be pointed to an 'absolute location' so that the recipient's mail reader can find the stylesheet through the internet.


Q: PCRecruiter is adding or removing margin space at the top and left of my pages. How do I adjust that?

A: To edit the margins in an HTML document, view the source code by clicking the "View Source" button. In the web version of PCRecruiter, "View Source" can be found under the "Background Properties" button at the right side the toolbar, below the spell check button. Look for a line that begins with "<BODY". You can adjust the margins by editing the 'marginheight', 'marginwidth', 'topmargin' and 'leftmargin' values. For example, the following line would result in a 2-pixel margin at the top and left of the page.:

<BODY leftmargin="2" topmargin="2" marginwidth="2" marginheight="2">

Setting the margins to '0' will flush the content against the edges of the window. The 'leftmargin' and 'marginwidth' terms are identical, as are 'topmargin' and 'marginheight'. The 'left' and 'top' specifications are Microsoft terms, while 'width' and 'height' are Netscape terms. Some email programs will recognize one and not the other, so it's best to include both when setting your margins.

If you have any questions, contact our technical support department: support@mainsequence.net or (440) 946-5214

This document is provided for information only. The information contained in this document is the position of Main Sequence Technologies as of the date of publication. This information is not a promise or guarantee nor is the accuracy of any information generated after this item is published guaranteed.

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