HTML sucks. But it can suck less.

The problems you can’t solve ① doesn’t scale. ② Who are you again? ③ Your recipient list is not your mother. ④ Look at my new iThing!/The IT department gives me a Blackberry. ⑤ Go away I hate you. ⑥ The browser wars are alive and well. Code like it’s 1999! ⑦ Most clients don’t display images by default.

What this means ① There is some stuff you just …can’t …do. ② So best practices for are not like best practices for anything else. ③ And yet we still have to look cool and work on modern devices.

Specific gotchas ① 98% containing table* width. ② Font styles go in the table cells. ③ Float like a bee. ④ is your new best friend. ⑤ Whitespace with HTML. ⑥ 1px gap ⑦ Use absolute URLs for images. * Think of it as the

Oh God, mobile ① Almost half of is read on mobile devices. ② Preview is kind of like mobile! ③ Automatic text resizing, I love you.

Tools ① The Chart of Despair and Incompatibility: campaignmonitor.com/css campaignmonitor.com/css ② Campaign Monitor Generator: campaignmonitor.com/templates ③ Litmus Builder: litmusbuilder.com/ ④ Zurb Templates: zurb.com/playground/responsive- - templates ⑤ Pr er: pr er.dialect.ca ⑥ Litmus Tests: litmus.com/ -testing

Sources Sitepoint 24ways Zurb Campaign Monitor MailChimp Litmus

Elizabeth Yalkut Powerpoint, including speaker notes, available at: columbia.edu/~eg2234/ sucks.ppt