How to make ASCII art display in HTML email cross platform?
February 23, 2018 7:56 AM   Subscribe

Hi, I run an event series that uses ascii art to advertise our shows each month in a email blast formatted in HTML. We send through mailchimp. The Ascii displays correctly across all browsers and mobile platforms except the Gmail android app. Any advice for how to ensure this displays correctly in the Gmail android app? Thanks so much.
posted by katesharks to Computers & Internet (9 answers total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
It might help to give a screen grab example of a correct display paired with the incorrect display on Android.
posted by SaltySalticid at 8:31 AM on February 23, 2018


HTML-formatted e-mail is an incredibly convoluted problem. If you haven't done so already, set up an account at Litmus, which lets you test your templates on everything.

Did you bracket the ASCII-art with the "pre" or "tt" tag? How did you set it up?
posted by adamrice at 9:13 AM on February 23, 2018


second the tt tag
posted by noloveforned at 9:42 AM on February 23, 2018


Response by poster: It's set up as a table. I've tried the pre tag, but not the tt tag. Will try this! Thank you.
posted by katesharks at 9:44 AM on February 23, 2018


Looks like tt is deprecated in html5, you may want to try some of their alternatives
posted by noloveforned at 9:47 AM on February 23, 2018


I'd try the <code> tag, too.
posted by wanderingmind at 9:57 AM on February 23, 2018


according to the bottom of this article https://mixmax.com/blog/write-perfect-readable-code-in-gmail you can try making sure your <pre> are contained within <table> instead of <div>

another thing to try is 
<div style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre;">ASCII art here</div>
Hackier solution is to take a screenshot of your ASCII art and send it as an image (possibly to gmail users only).
posted by pyro979 at 12:04 PM on February 23, 2018


Seconding Litmus. And keep in mind that it's very difficult to guarantee that it will look the same across various email clients.
posted by Aleyn at 2:41 PM on February 23, 2018


Yeah... I work pretty extensively with different mail clients -- each one does different weird stuff.

I'd just send a screenshot...
posted by ph00dz at 9:14 PM on February 23, 2018


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