Hi Kay (and Christine). Comments inline... > Hi Christine, > > I do not consider the OO.o newsletter to be a marketplace. > I am fully agree that an OO.o related market place would be valuable. > For now we do have two pages which covering OO.o service and products > http://bizdev.openoffice.org/consultants.html > http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/OpenOffice.org_Solutions > the design of the pages are a mess but the wiki concept has the > advantage that every OO.o user can add their services to the page. > > due to the lack on resources there is currently no immediate plan to > improve the pages. > > However back to the newsletter design . Creating an Text and HTML > version of the newsletter would take too long due to the fact that I am > creating the newsletter manually. If we decided to go with the Text > format, we can discuss a new design.
Most email programs can be set to automatically create email in mixed HTML/plain text format. I regularly get such newsletters as well as many regular emails. I know Kmail (my client) can be set to do this, and I suspect Evolution (or whatever is used under Gnome) also has that facility. Outlook most definitely does. My previous suggestion of using OO.o to create it probably has more merit than you might think initially. I notice that many of the email newsletters I receive started life as MS Word documents, as witnessed by the HTML headers. OO.o can only export to HTML 4 IIRC, but that is still sufficient for a basic newsletter. Christine mentioned a few objections to HTML. All I know is that, while I have my client set to prefer plain text, it only takes one click to display the formatted HTML, with one other click to load any external web-based graphics. I believe this would be the case with most current email clients (and yes, most of those newsletters I receive are essentially marketing efforts). > > Regards > > Kay > > On 08/17/09 15:50, Christine Louise Beems wrote: > > Hello Alex, Kay and all. I am new to this list (having been lurking > > for a week), learning to use OpenOffice (and enjoying it) and > > minimally conversant with OpenSource applications & ideology, all of > > which I find very impressive. > > > > My competency is in creative development, media, marketing and > > communications, in light of which I offer a perspective on the OO.o > > newsletter: > > > > While I know that 'everyone' is going to html, I suggest that the > > marketplace is not yet sufficiently equipped to recieve html email. > > The attached screenshot shows what will most likely come up as a > > 'first look' in the majority of Inboxes... which in strictest > > promotional terms means that the space which *should* be devoted to > > your 'hook' (lead information that draws the reader deeper into the > > content) is being 'wasted' on a blank graphic. > > > > Also consider that a substantial number of the 'professional end > > users' (who are not employed in IT but are in many instances 'the > > decision makers') are minimally technology literate... which I do not > > say as a discredit but simply as diagnosis of facts so that the > > 'needs' of the marketplace are pragmatically assessed in terms of > > providing a legitimate service to the clients we seek to serve. > > > > In this light consider that what these professionals greatly value is > > 'consistency'. We (all of us) have a job to do and we want to do it > > efficiently, effectively and competently... and it drives us (the > > non-tech office worker) nutz when we have to spend half of our > > 'production time' learning the nuances of some new-and-improved > > 'upgrade' in order to do what we knew how to do perfectly last week... > > (smile). > > > > And finally, it might be worth considering that html formatting raises > > one's 'score' with the spam-gods, which can raise a newsletter's > > bounce-back rate considerably and cascade to blacklisting by various > > ISPs. > > > > Thus in terms of newsletter design I would suggest continuing to > > distribute in (creatively formatted) plain text but also offering a > > link to a nicely formatted PDF version and/or a link to a webpage > > where the html formatted version (optimally with photos/graphics) is > > posted. > > > > Anyway, all just my opinion and perhaps not of any use...??? In any > > event, I am enjoying using OpenOffice because (so far at least) the > > process of 'learning' has been highly intuitive, making for an easy > > transition from the closed source applications I have been using for > > all these many years. Thanks!!! ~Christine Beems > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > > To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@marketing.openoffice.org > > For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@marketing.openoffice.org -- Alex Fisher Co-Lead, CD-ROM Project OpenOffice.org Marketing Community Contact Australia/New Zealand http://distribution.openoffice.org/cdrom/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@marketing.openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@marketing.openoffice.org
