Html charts in email without using javascript [closed]

Question

I'm looking for nice charts for my newsletter. Since javascript is not email friendly I need an html only solution.

I'll send email once a month with statistics of user's performance and stuff done during the month.

So what do you think is the best solution? Can I found some nice basic html charts where I can change little in my back-end with user's data?

I know with JS it would be easy, but is not my case. I'll send both to mobile and desktop.

Thank you very very much!!

Answer 1

I would recommend against trying to attach js/css/html based charts, you will run into a lot of issues. I've wrote a tutorial on generating charts as images and attaching to emails here: http://www.sqldashboards.com/b/send-email-with-graphs/ Basically you

1. Configure mutt to allow sending email
2. Generate charts at the command line.
3. Send an email, with attachments using mutt

Answer 2

You can't simply use raw HTML to get charts. It is simply not possible, just got to use a scripting language to do so, HTML isn't one.

If you are willing to use CSS3 to make your chart a reality, I suggest you to check out this good article: http://www.ssiddique.info/dynamic-chart-in-css.html

Answer 3

A little late to the game here, but my team at Ramen recently spun out some internal functionality into a standalone product that does just this: https://ChartURL.com

You can generate charts on the fly using an "Encrypted URL" scheme, or you can send us huge amounts of data and return a Short URL that'll resolve to an image. These URLs can be used in web apps & mobile apps, but the original intent was email charts so I hope this helps!

Answer 4

You can use any scripting language you want pre-send, but the email itself needs to be pure html. The only way you can change its contents after send, is if you link it to a hosted image, and you swap out that image.

With that being said, if you are after a html email example with a chart to get started, take a look here. It is a fluid template which is the most widely supported technique for mobile, web and desktop browsers.