Reputation: 277

Struggling with formatting an HTML newsletter

I've been trying to compose a newsletter for the institute where I help out, but don't have extensive experience in using HTML. I was told that I need to use an online template for designing the newsletter, which is based in Everlytic (the mass-mail sending service), but after formatting everything and sending a preview to myself, I found that the table does not display as it should. For some reason, after certain columns, a few empty cells show up that do not show up in the WYSIWYG editor. I know they're not that reliable, but still.

Here is one of the two places it shows up in the final email

I've poked around the HTML, but I can't figure out what seems to be wrong? I suspect that the amount of columns the table is assigned to use is to blame, but I am very uncertain. I've included the HTML of the newsletter up until just past the point where the problem occurs.

<html>
<head>
    <title></title>
</head>
<body>
    <style type="text/css"><!-- .grey {
color: #666; }
--></style>
    <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="grey" width="704">
        <tbody>
            <tr>
                <td valign="top"><br>
                    <table border="1" cellspacing="0" height="2454" width="726">
                        <tbody>
                            <tr>
                                <td colspan="3"><img alt="" height="460" src="http://newsletters.stellenbosch-mail.com/users/assets/14/images/Header.jpg" width="694"></td>
                            </tr>
                            <tr bgcolor="#99CC66">
                                <td colspan="3">
                                    <div align="center"><font color="#FFFFFF" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="4">NEWSLETTER<br>
                                        <font size="1">May 2014</font></font></div>
                                </td>
                            </tr>
                            <tr>
                                <td colspan="2">
                                    <div align="justify"><br>
                                        <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Universiteite regoor die wêreld besef al hoe meer dat daar op verskillende maniere aandag gegee moet word aan die uitdagings van ons dag. Vrae in hierdie verband word selfs meer spesifiek as daar gesoek word na die rol wat graduandi speel as leiers in ons samelewing.<br>
                                        <br>
                                        Om hierdie vrae verder te vra en om te begin om antwoorde te vind, het die Universiteit van Stellenbosch (US) besluit om die Frederik van Zyl Slabbert Instituut vir Studenteleierskapsontwikkeling (FVZS Instituut) te vestig as ’n sentrale vennoot in die leer- en leefwêreld van studente. Die FVZS Instituut – die eerste van sy soort in Suid-Afrika – is in 2011 amptelik bekendgestel en bou op verskillende maniere voort op die nalatenskap van wyle dr Frederik van Zyl Slabbert.<br>
                                        <br>
                                        Hierdie nuusbrief bied 'n samevatting van die aktiwiteite van die FVZS-Instituut en nooi ons lesers uit om deel te neem daaraan om vrae te vra oor die kwessies van die dag en om saam met ons studente antwoorde te soek oor die kwessies van die dag. Geniet die nuusbrief!<br>
                                        <br>
                                        Leslie van Rooi</font></div>
                                </td>
                            </tr>
                            <tr>
                            </tr>
                            <tr>
                            </tr>
                            <tr>
                                <td bgcolor="#99CC66" colspan="2"><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><font color="#FFFFFF" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="3">FVZS HONORARY LECTURE 2014 </font></font><font color="#99CC66" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">.</font></td>
                            </tr>
                            <tr>
                                <td valign="top" width="52%">
                                    <p><br>
                                        <span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><strong>Honorary Lecture informs new generation of active citizens</strong></span></span><br>
                                        <span style="font-size:12px;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Message from DR LESLIE VAN ROOI, Head of the FVZS Institute for Student Leadership Development.<br>

Anyone have any idea how to fix this?

Upvotes: 0

Answers (2)

Nawed Khan

Reputation: 4391

Remove these extra TRs

 <tr>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 </tr>

Upvotes: 1

Collins

Reputation: 1149

You seem to have missed all of the closing tags, the style tags are in the body, and you have a few empty rows.

Also, making it a fixed width might cause some issues.

Here it is all sorted.

<html>
<head>
    <title></title>
</head>
<body>
    <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="grey" style="width:80%;margin:0 auto;">
        <tbody>
            <tr>
                <td valign="top"><br>
                    <table border="1" cellspacing="0">
                        <tbody>
                            <tr>
                                <td colspan="3"><img alt="" src="http://newsletters.stellenbosch-mail.com/users/assets/14/images/Header.jpg" width="100%"></td>
                            </tr>
                            <tr bgcolor="#99CC66">
                                <td colspan="3">
                                    <div align="center"><font color="#FFFFFF" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="4">NEWSLETTER<br>
                                        <font size="1">May 2014</font></font></div>
                                </td>
                            </tr>
                            <tr>
                                <td colspan="2">
                                    <div align="justify"><br>
                                        <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Universiteite regoor die wêreld besef al hoe meer dat daar op verskillende maniere aandag gegee moet word aan die uitdagings van ons dag. Vrae in hierdie verband word selfs meer spesifiek as daar gesoek word na die rol wat graduandi speel as leiers in ons samelewing.<br>
                                        <br>
                                        Om hierdie vrae verder te vra en om te begin om antwoorde te vind, het die Universiteit van Stellenbosch (US) besluit om die Frederik van Zyl Slabbert Instituut vir Studenteleierskapsontwikkeling (FVZS Instituut) te vestig as ’n sentrale vennoot in die leer- en leefwêreld van studente. Die FVZS Instituut – die eerste van sy soort in Suid-Afrika – is in 2011 amptelik bekendgestel en bou op verskillende maniere voort op die nalatenskap van wyle dr Frederik van Zyl Slabbert.<br>
                                        <br>
                                        Hierdie nuusbrief bied 'n samevatting van die aktiwiteite van die FVZS-Instituut en nooi ons lesers uit om deel te neem daaraan om vrae te vra oor die kwessies van die dag en om saam met ons studente antwoorde te soek oor die kwessies van die dag. Geniet die nuusbrief!<br>
                                        <br>
                                        Leslie van Rooi</font></div>
                                </td>
                            </tr>
                            <tr>
                                <td bgcolor="#99CC66" colspan="2"><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><font color="#FFFFFF" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="3">FVZS HONORARY LECTURE 2014 </font></font><font color="#99CC66" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">.</font></td>
                            </tr>
                            <tr>
                                <td valign="top" width="52%">
                                    <p><br>
                                        <span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><strong>Honorary Lecture informs new generation of active citizens</strong></span></span><br>
                                        <span style="font-size:12px;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Message from DR LESLIE VAN ROOI, Head of the FVZS Institute for Student Leadership Development.<br>
                                </td>
                            </tr>
                        </tbody>
                    </table>
                </td>
            </tr>
        </tbody>
    </table>

Upvotes: 0

Struggling with formatting an HTML newsletter

Answers (2)

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