Here are some useful tips for using the content editor.
- The best way to create a campaign is to type directly into the content editor if you can. The second best way is to copy and paste from a Simple Text Editor like Notepad or Notepad ++ or TextWrangler for Mac. Once the plain text is in the content editor, use our editing tools to format your styles and links and such.
- If you copy-paste from Microsoft Word, we will strip out most of the formatting so you can use the text editor with great success. Click on that link you just passed to learn more about Word and campaigns.
- When copying content from other websites, email programs, and places that are not a word processor, use the "paste as plain text" option in the content editor toolbar for the greatest success. Again, we'll strip out a lot of the formatting so you can use the editor with more success.
- First, type all your content into MailChimp. THEN go back and edit the formatting and styles later. When you edit your formatting and styles, the editor starts inserting lots of HTML code behind the scenes. If you keep making tons of edits as you work, code will start overlapping and conflicting. So the golden rule is: Content first. Play with formatting later.
- Make sure when you're highlighting text before choosing a style that you don't grab any extra spaces or lines. That can cause overlapping of styles.
- If you have copied your content from a website or a web based email program and you need to clean up the campaign, you can generally use the eraser tool (clear styles tool) on the online editor toolbar to remove just the formatting and junk code brought over from the other program. This works really well for information copied from a webpage or a web based email program. The system is dealing with code that it could not create using our tools, so it isn't always perfect.
- If you copied over your content from MS Word, the *ONLY* way to fix this is to start a new campaign and add clean content. It creates so much junk code that the formatting remover tool can't even clean it up. Or use the email beamer to send over what you designed in Word.
- If you're editing hideable sections in your template, please note, the section won't disappear in the editor screen. The section you want to remove will fade, but remain - just in case you change your mind and want to use the space. However, when you send out your email, the section you have "removed" won't appear in your campaign. You can preview this change by clicking on popup preview. The remove and hide this section buttons don't offer the same functionality in the Template editor. In fact, you can't actually remove anything while working in the Template editor. If you need to make changes like that, we suggest you work in the Campaign Builder instead.