Secrets of the Email Canvas

VerticalResponse offers several applications for building an email within VR for AppExchange.  The most popular of these apps is the Email Canvas.  It is both a more powerful and more flexible editor than the other provided tools.

But more flexibility and power also means more complexity.  And while many parts of the Canvas are very straightforward (adding an image, creating a link, changing fonts), some functions are not as obvious.

Let’s take a look at some of these less obvious “secrets” of the Email Canvas tool.

Line Breaks:

The first time you type any text into the Canvas and hit the enter key, something that is perhaps unexpected happens - you get a double line break.  This is perfect if you wanted to start a new paragraph, and not so perfect if you were hoping to get a single line break.  So how do you get a single line break?  Hit Shift+Enter. 

Linking to an Email Address

Creating a link to a website is very straightforward: choose the text or image you want to link, click the link icon in the top row of the toolbar, and type the address for the link (http://www.mysite.com).  But what if you want to link to an email address instead of a web address?

The process is exactly the same as linking to a webpage, except you should type mailto:email@address.com in the link address box.  If I wanted to create a link to the email address for VerticalResponse support, I’d simply type mailto:support@verticalresponse.com.

Changing Background Colors:

Every available Canvas Layout has it’s own default background colors.  But what if you like a layout, but don’t particularly care for that layout’s provided background colors (or would like the colors to match your company’s branding)?   

Each section within a Canvas Layout is a Table Cell, and the background color of any particular cell can be easily changed.  All you need to do is click within that cell and then do one of two things:

1.  Right click and then choose Table Cell Properties from the menu that pops up.
2.  Choose Table Cell Properties from the Canvas Toolbar.  The Table Cell Properties button can be found in the second row of the toolbar (on the left-hand side).

Either of these options will open a dialog box where you can use a background color drop-down menu to select a different color.

Creating a Table of Contents

For a newsletter that includes several different sections (like the VerticalResponse newsletter), it’s a good idea to include a table of contents at the top of the newsletter so readers can click a link and go straight to the particular section they want to read.  How do you set this up?

1. Choose a part of your email that you'd like to link to. If you're writing a newsletter that has several different sections, the title to a section is a great spot.
2. Click the Anchor icon (top row, right side of the Designer's Toolbar). This will bring up a dialog box - name your anchor and click Insert
3. Now that you've "laid anchor", choose where you'd like to place a link to that anchor. This will usually be text or an image near the top of the email, since the main purpose of using an anchor link is to make it easy for readers to navigate to different parts of your message.
4. Click the Chain Link icon (it's right next to the Anchor icon) and use the drop down menu to select the name you gave your anchor earlier. Then click Insert.
5. Done! The new link will redirect you to the Anchor within your email. You can test this by going to the Quick Preview tab within the Canvas.

Changing the Default Font

If you’re not a fan of a layout’s default font, then you’ll probably want to change that font to one you like better.  The most obvious way to do that is to select text you want to change and then use the Font Family drop-down menu in the toolbar to select a different font.  But wouldn’t it be better to just change the default font for the entire email so that you get exactly the font you want as you type it?  Of course it would!

To change the default font, just go to Document Properties.  You can access Document Properties by clicking the fourth button from the right on the second row of the Canvas Toolbar.  From here you can use the text properties options to change the default Font Family and Font Size, as well as other properties like the color of your text and links.

Any other Canvas functionality you have questions about?  Let us know in the comments.

To learn more about using the Canvas, check out our How To Do Everything website or download our Step-by-Step Guide to Email Success. 

Richard Huffaker, Education & Training Manager

Comments

[Richard Pelletier]

Greetings,
Thinking seriously about this service. Question: one feature I currently have my existing service is the ability to see/read comments that are part of "forward this email to a friend" I don't see that with your service. Also, I've sent three maybe four emails as part of my trial but I keep getting "you have no sent emails." what gives with that? So far though, things are looking quite good.