@andorfuhrer Have absolutely experienced!  I generally follow the exact steps that you’ve shared, and those seem to alleviate most of it.  Have you also tried viewing the code and making sure that everything gets updated there?  The only other tip I have is to basically retype it inside GS versus copying and pasting.  For the most part, there aren’t really any areas of GS that like it when you copy and paste from somewhere else I’ve found.  

Formatting is tricky as each email client has their own weird rules on which HTML and CSS tags they support and how they will render them. Unfortunately there isn’t a lot of standardization with the email client companies. What usually works best is to simplify the code tags as much as possible. We obviously recommend using our email template builder directly as it won’t insert code that isn’t well supported. When you cut and paste content in, it’s risky as it likely has code not intended for email use. 

Another tip is to use the “remove formatting” button in the email template editor ribbon: https://support.gainsight.com/SFDC_Edition/Journey_Orchestrator_and_Email_Templates/Standard_Outreaches/03_Create_CoPilot_Email_Templates#Email_Template_Design_Tools

It appears as icon number 13 in the image below:

Hi - To Dan’s point, it sounds like there are different HTML tags that are creeping into the text. Especially for the plain text emails, I make sure that the open tags are before the text and the close tags are after the text. The fewer tags you have, the cleaner the result.

I’d be happy to help take a look if it’s helpful.

Elizabeth

To @dan_ahrens point - I’ve seen email display just fine in one client but after being forwarded to another client, the font-face or size is off. I believe there are tools like Litmus and Email on Acid that allow for email testing in a variety of OS and clients -- because there isn’t a common standard.

Correct. There’s a whole industry that exists primarily because the companies that make email clients can’t seem to agree on a standard like the browser software companies have done. 

Thank you all for the responses!  Another trick I found was CTRL + SHIFT + V or COMMAND + SHIFT + V when pasting from a doc to Gainsight.  That seems to exclude all that funky shit that is invisible to the human eye when you first paste.  

Additionally the Remove Formatting button def does the trick.  

@dan_ahrens  @john_apple @elizabeth_adams_c593ee @heather_hansen - have y’all had any bad formatting experience if you clone an email template?  I think I heard through the grapevines that we should not use Clone since it may mess up the formatting.  Any insight into this? 

I haven’t had a problem with cloning a template, but I am careful to make the changes after cloning directly in the HTML as any edits to the text in the WYSIWYG editor start adding in formatting tags that I don’t need.  

I hope that helps!

Elizabeth

Same.  I don’t clone a lot, but I do use variants a good bit and haven’t had any issues there.

@andorfuhrer No issues I’m aware of with cloning a template and then having the clone reflect some broken content not present in the parent template. 

The advice from @elizabeth_adams_c593ee is good as well, as many WYSIWYG editors can add extra tags when doing multiple edit iterations on a given text block. Many times (and I learned this long before Gainsight) it’s just easier to go under the hood and edit the text in the HTML view. 

This is what I do and I haven’t faced any major issues. Always good to check indentations though. 

As for cloning, no issues there at all. I agree though that the email editor could really use some beefing up.