I have an image that has a variety of elements in the picture. I want to define a unique link to each element in that one picture and paste it into an e-mail.
I tried chopping up the picture into pieces where each piece is a distinct JPG file and apply a link to that then carefully placed them back together in my e-mail so it looked like one picture. Unfortunately differing e-mail clients and PCs can cause the “single” (composited) picture to break apart. So I need a single picture that has multiple links in different areas.
I hope that is clear for what I hope to do. If not let me know and I will try to explain better. I have access to programs like Illustrator and such if that helps.
Thanks in advance!
You need to use an image map. I am not sure what tools there are for making these, other than Adobe Illustrator (surely it’s not the only one). Perhaps tho now that you have the name, you can Google around to find something that suits you.
ETA: Duh me - you have Illustrator. Use that. Should be info in the program’s help files to tell you how to do it. Pretty much just draw a line around your linkable area, type in the link info, do it for each area, then output your image and HTML.
JPEG doesnt support links, so what youre asking about is an HTML image map. I work in IT and I always advise against complex HTML in emails. All email clients support different tags and a good admin will have them locked down pretty well. Your best bet is to just put a link in the email to a webpage hosting the image map.
What you’re doing will never work if you’re emailing people who are remotely security-conscious, or whose computers are controlled by people who are. HorseloverFat’s idea is better, but it’s best to put real content in the email and save all HTML and images for the Web.
Hmm…
Unfortunately these guys want the image IN the e-mail. I have mentioned that it is better to put links in but so far have failed to convince them.
I took the file and created multiple layers. To each layer I specified a URL (the layers sit side-by-side). All seems well except I cannot seem to get it into Outlook.
If I save the file as HTML it opens in Friefox fine with the links. But I cannot seem to get it as a picture, with the links, into Outlook.
What am I missing?
The problem with sending HTML emails is that you’re at the mercy of the email software on the recipients desktop… you sacrifice control over how the HTML is rendered. See this article, which explains some of the particular issues with Outlook. You have a whole different set of issues with email rendering for Yahoo, AOL, and GMail.
I understand that you want to give your clients what they are asking for. Just want to make sure that you understand that what they are asking for flies in the face of best practices and won’t deploy well even if you kluge together a workaround.