CSS on Email

Question

Has anyone found a good way of embeding CSS in a programatically produced email. The best way I have found is to put the style code into a resource file and call it into the code.

An emample would be

Dim objBuilder
objBuilder = New StringBuilder

objBuilder.Append(Resources.SystemEmail.CSSStyle)
objBuilder.Append("My Styled Email")

Dim _Body As String = objBuilder.ToString()

This would build the body of the email

Is there any way to make a template file for an email or a better way to call a style sheet into one.

The code in my .resx file would be

<STYLE TYPE="text/css">
<!--
body
{

    font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial;
    font-size: 10pt;
    padding: 3px 0px 0px 0px;
    margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px;

}
-->
</STYLE>

And calling this into the string would call this inline

And with the answers below to send the message I would use this

Dim client As New SmtpClient("localhost")
Dim toAddr As New MailAddress(MailRecipients)
Dim fromAddr As New MailAddress(MailFrom)
Dim message As New MailMessage(fromAddress, toAddress)


message.Subject = "The Subject"
message.Body =  _Body 
message.IsBodyHtml = True
message.BodyEncoding = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8

client.Send(message)

Answer 1

The only way we've been successful is to include the CSS inline. Document Header style CSS inclusion isn't consistent or reliable.

Also, make sure your email headers are set to: Content-type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1

EDIT UTF-8 is also a good option. The KEY point of that statement is the Content-type being set to text/html

Answer 2

Here is a comprehensive guide on which css styles are supported by each email client: http://www.campaignmonitor.com/css/

A guide on what you will need to know: http://www.campaignmonitor.com/design-guidelines/

There is also a large collection of free pre-built templates that you can use as a reference: http://www.campaignmonitor.com/templates/

Finally, the same company provides a testing tool that will show you how your message will show up in each email client for a reasonable fee: http://www.campaignmonitor.com/testing/