How to include text in your email newsletters
This post is part of our series Emails for Everyone. Find the entire ongoing exploration here.
How to add text to your emails
As we’ve explored in this series, to make your emails fun and accessible for everyone, you need to add text into the body of your email.
When it comes to accessibility and readability for anyone who has their images turned off, text that is on an image file will not show up.
What do you mean by text on an image file?
If you type text into a design program, like Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign or an online app like Canva, and save that as an image file, like a PNG or JPG, that text is part of an image and stops being actual text. It’s now a picture of text.
It might look something like this:
Some people can read this, but some people need real letters on the page to be able to understand your message.
Put Text In The Body of Your Email
This is the very best way to create emails for everyone. This will of course depend on the email software you are using, but most have clearly defined Text Blocks that you can add to your email layout. Use those to write your message.
If you using HTML to write your email and not using a drag-and-drop email marketing app, you’ll need to use heading and paragraph tags (with, you know, headings and paragraphs in them.)
Follow basic accessibility guidelines. Here’s a start.
Add Alternative Text
Your email software will have an input area near your images for “Alternative Text” or “Alt Text.” If you add an image, you should use this space to describe it in a way that you would to a friend who couldn’t see it. It doesn’t need to be lengthy, but try to capture the important elements in a sentence or two. If you add text on your image, please write that text in your alternative text. This text will appear if someone has their images turned off, can be read by a screen reader and will show up if there’s a technical problem with displaying your image.
Create a plain text version
Most email marketing apps will generate a plain text version of your email, provided you included text in the body of your email.
Find the plain text version of your email. Make sure it’s designed and formatted well, and easy to scan and read. Does it still make sense without the images?
If you make this one change, and include text in your email newsletters and promotions, you’ll make a huge step towards Emails for Everyone!
How to include text in your email newsletters
By Nicole Bemboom