With the Pendula email builder, HTML templates can be made as simple or as complex as you make them—so there's a few things to bear in mind when creating or editing templates within Pendula.
Quick links
Known Pendula email builder bugs
Known email client rendering bugs (Outlook)
General best practice
Do not edit imported templates
Editing your template after it has been imported may cause unexpected results. We recommend making all changes prior importing the template into Pendula.
Duplicate existing elements
When duplicating an element, ensure you are selecting the right layer – tables (not table cells) is the safest option. If the wrong wrong layer is duplicated, unexpected styling and rendering can occur.
Use classes to keep your styling consistent
If using a pre-existing template from the Pendula email builder, classes can be used to easily cascade styles across the email template without manual altering. Learn more about using classes here.
Place new blocks inside a table
For example, to add an image, place the image inside a table and adjust the table cell width. This will mitigate some known sizing issues for Microsoft Outlook.
Outlook ignores most styles you apply to the <div> tag, including margins, padding and max-width. This affects elements like button styling and the width and height of images. The best way to prevent this is to use tables with cell padding or line height instead.
Images must be publicly hosted links with https:// or https://
Avoid using privately hosted links — for example, an image address with an internal cloud storage link, as it will not render in the email sent out to your recipients. Link styling can also be ignored on Outlook unless a URL is complete with http:// or https://.
Images must be added via the Image tile
Avoid dragging an image into the email builder canvas, as it will not render in the email sent out to your recipients.
Avoiding copy and pasting rich text
Always type directly into the textbox or paste from a plain text editor. This will prevent formatting issues experienced with stylised text (e.g. from Microsoft Word).
Always test send your emails
We highly recommend sending yourself test emails before sending it out to your intended recipients. Check for rendering errors (such as mergefields and layout), typos and links.
- Create a flow with the test email address as the only recipient. Drag email node onto canvas and select the template to be tested. Activate your flow.
- On the Flow Details page, look for Debug mode and select Trigger now to trigger the flow.
Known Pendula email builder bugs
Do design an email that caters both for desktop and mobile
At the moment the Pendula email builder does not support responsive email design.
See below for an example of the same email template viewed on desktop versus mobile.
| Mobile | Desktop |
Known email client rendering bugs (Microsoft Outlook)
Microsoft Outlook has a number of known rendering issues across its various versions for desktop and web. Most of them can be solved by using a table to build your email. Common issues are outlined below, and further details can be found here.
CSS background images are not supported
Vector Markup Language (VML) is recommended instead.
Alignment issues
Misaligned content can occur when two-column responsive email templates.