How do I make cool emails with photos in?

[pickupthismess]

I want to produce a really professional looking email with a photo in it to send to friends abroad this New year (like the kind you receive commercially from M&S, John Lewis etc though much shorter).

Do they use special software to create these in or are they using a template they just email? Am totally new to this. I only have the usual basics on my computer.

HELP clever technical people!

You add a photo as an attachment, don't you?

Thanks Mrs but I want the photo to be embedded in the text so it looks like a card almost. Text around and below it, maybe in different fonts.

So basically when they open the email it appears as one sheet of designed content not a usual email with attached photo below.

bump

Hi,

Having tried to produce in house designed e-shots I have tried this time and time again! I think in the end it was to do with the email settings - you need to send an HTLM/ Rich Text email rather than a plain text one... (Mail, settings I think from memory) I produced something in Publisher before and grouped the lot, then pasted this into the body of the email. Something to remember is the different machine settings that it will be recievd to - best option would be to PDF the file if you can as its then a frozen copy of the original, or else you will create in OUtlook (or similar) a file which will be opened by Hotmail (or similar) and spacings will be out/ twice the size etc. I hope this makes some sort of sense, and helps a little!

Tanks, I'll have a look at publisher. Do you know what CSS means? I read about it online in terms of producing professional looking emails.

You Could try IncrediMail I haven't actually used it myself but have been told it works well.

www.incredimail.com