How to use free email templates
At the moment, we do not have any built in email templates that you can use for your newsletters. We are currently working on it and in the mean time I want to show you
how you can use other free email templates. Here are few good examples
of free email template resources (but you you can always google for more):
Note, this post assumes that you have some knowledge of HTML and would be able to handle basic HTML edits as you go through.
Select and download email template
Select an email template that you like and download it to your computer. I would suggest to start with a simple one.
Note, that some of the email templates can include email macros, e.g.
templates from Mail Chimp. I would suggest to avoid using such
templates. If not make sure to remove all macros in the code.
Next, unzip the downloaded file and you will notice that it contains one or several HTML files and folder with images.
Transfer images to your Wild Apricot account
As a first step, you need to upload these images to your Wild Apricot
account. You can just grab "images" folder (this folder name is used as an example) and transfer it over with
WebDav.
For more details on WebDav see: http://help.wildapricot.com/display/DOC/Working+with+WebDAV
Update images links
Next, we need to edit the HTML file. Open with the editor.
If you do not have an editor you can get a free one called Notepad++ from http://notepad-plus-plus.org/
When you open the HTML code you will notice that all images in the
code are referenced in the following way "images/bg-1.jpg". This
reference will not work in Wild Apricot and it needs to be adjusted to
"/resources/images/bg-1.jpg"
For this use editor "find and replace" option.
Copy paste HTML code into the Wild Apricot editor
You need to start by creating a new email.
See: http://help.wildapricot.com/display/DOC/Sending+e-mail+blasts
When you at the edit step
select <HTML> button from the editor toolbar to open HTML editor.
Copy paste your HTML template and save it.
See: http://help.wildapricot.com/display/DOC/Inserting+HTML+or+JavaScript#InsertingHTMLorJavaScript-InsertingHTML
You will now see your new email template in your editor. Hooray!
Clean up template
Unsubscribe link
When an email is sent from Wild Apricot, Unsubscribed link inserted
at the bottom of the email automatically and it is not possible to edit/ remove or customize it at the moment.
If you use one of the free templates, in most cases they come with
Unsubscribe link, you can find it at the top or at the bottom of the
email. You need to remove it since it will not work. So in editor, just
highlight the corresponding area/ word and delete it.
View online version links
Some email providers offer an option to view an email online by
clicking on "View online version" links. Wild Apricot does not have this
option and unless you create a separate page and link to it manually this link will not work.
So you can delete it as well.
Add your own content
Now you can edit the email and add your own content.
- Images - Insert your own images. You have to make sure that the
images that you want to replace will have the same dimensions and names
and that you re-upload them into the appropriate folder. In fact, you
might want to do this in the first place before uploading the images
folder since some of the template have images that simply say "YOUR
LOGO"
- Links - insert links to your pages. You can use Links button in the editor toolbar.
See: http://help.wildapricot.com/display/DOC/Inserting+Links
- Colors - note that you can change other colors that are not set through the images directly in the HTML code.
Denys Zlobin
Helpful Apricot
http://www.wildapricot.com