Sending HTML emails in Outlook 2007

Have you ever received one of those advertisement or newsletter emails that looks like a web page? Well here's how you do it in Outlook 2007.

First create the web page you want to send via email.

Keep in mind you will need to keep it simple since every email client will render the page differently. Also many clients such as Outlook will block any images from being displayed unless the user asks it to download the images.
For more details check out these guidelines by David Greiner.

Next upload the file to you server, preferably in a folder dedicated to HTML email templates.

Make sure all your related files, i.e. graphics, stylesheets, etc... are also on your server.
USE ABSOLUTE PATH NAMES FOR YOUR IMAGES!
i.e. http://www.yoursite.com/images/imagename.gif instead of /images/imagename.gif

In Outlook 2007, create a new message

Click the INSERT tab

Click ATTACH FILE > select your file > at the bottom of the browse box you will see an insert button. Once you have your HTML file selected this insert button will have a down arrow in the lower right corner.

Click the down arrow and select INSERT AS TEXT.

Now you can see your page as an HTML document in your message.

Press send.

Make sure to review the message to ensure it renders properly.