Tip #18 - Insert ‘Images’ in your signature line or the body of your emails sent from SmartAdvocate.

In a prior Tip-Of-The-Week, we discussed how to create a signature line for emails sent from SmartAdvocate. That discussion prompted the question of how to embed an image in a signature line and/or how to embed a picture in the body of the email itself – especially in email templates. Here is an example of a ‘Welcome Email’ generated from an Email Template with pictures embedded:

Here is the Email Template used to generate the ‘Welcome Email’ shown above:

There are two ways in which you can have a picture or image displayed in the body of your email (or signature line):

Have the picture hosted externally; or
Have the image data inserted in the email

Externally Hosted Picture/Image
Since there is no direct image-insert system in the Email panel, you would need to go to the external location, copy the image, and paste it into the panel. Please be aware however that some email clients do not automatically load external links, so unless the recipient specifically chose to view them, the picture or images would just appear as blank boxes. (Some email systems give recipients the option of downloading images). Also, if the recipient was to reply to the email or forward it without loading the links, the blank boxes may then always be there, i.e., the image link may be lost. Here also, it may depend on the email client.

Insert the image data directly into the email
If you have a local copy of the image, you should be able to copy that image and then paste it in the email panel, and it should go in as image data rather than a local file link. You can tell whether the image or picture went in as image data by clicking the HTML tab (the HTML tab is shown in the bottom left corner of the email template). If it looks like a short link, it did not go in as image data, and if it looks like a huge wall of gibberish, then it did.

The SA email system automatically converts image data to an embedded image attachment when sending, and that generally works well for most recipient email clients. Just be aware that you can’t currently use the ‘Use Outlook to Send Emails’ (accessed under User Preferences) option if your signature/email body contains image data – the Outlook plugin does not know how to convert it and Outlook refuses to display it, so you just get a broken image icon.

In any event, of the two options, the image data is perhaps the more reliable.