Poco Composing FAQ - Using HTML in messages

Q: How can I use HTML in PocoMail messages?

In it's most basic way, I would like to be able to add a normal hyperlink in the <a href="link">Text</a> format in my signature.

In a more advanced way, I would like to be able to create an HTML message for newsletters and send the message out?

 
A:
Regarding signatures, if you include a URL in your sig, it should be clickable the same way they are in message bodies.

While you cannot enter HTML directly in Poco; using the styled format, the message is sent with HTML.

There are also two work arounds that you may find useful:

Using Draft Messages

Poco now saves it's draft messages as eml files so you can "abuse" this function to edit the html. To do this:
  1. Compose your message using Poco's compose window
  2. Save the message as a draft
  3. Go to a mailbox other than draft
  4. From the "View" menu select "Open Attachments Folder"
  5. Navigate to the Draft folder beneath the "Mail" folder
  6. Sort the files in the folder in descending order by date
  7. Edit the top file in a text editor
  8. Save the file back under the same name
  9. Open the drafts folder
  10. Double click on the message to open it in the compose window
  11. Send it.

I haven't tested this thoroughly, there might be changes you make to the message that cannot be displayed in Poco's compose winidow and this might cause problems but in general I think this concept should work.

Using Templates

  1. Start a compose window
  2. Make sure it is in styled mode
  3. Save this as a template.
  4. From the message menu choose "Organize templates" from the "New message from template" item.
  5. Select the template you just created and open it with NotePad (or another text editor such as NoteTab). You can now enter the HTML codes you want after the <font> tag within the Body. (You can also cut and paste code from another document you created that you have previewed). This does work in general although some formatting may not come out as expected and will depend on the client used to view the message. (Eg: Poco will give all table columns equal width while some other clients may size them proportional to the amount of text in the column).