Aaaah the alternative texts... How I love this principle! I don't know about you, but alternative texts have always fascinated me. Yes, I know, it's a bit silly, but what do you want... I'm a bit crazy... Well, let's be precise: it's not the content of alternative texts per se that provokes this emotion, no. It is rather graphic layout and design of alternative texts in an email. The sweet and serene feeling of a job well done, of the "little gift" that I come up with when I propose an elegant graphic version of these alternative texts.
So you'll call me silly, but damn, don't I have the right to a little guilty pleasure? Mine is to spend some quality time in find appropriate formatting for alternative textsYes, well, so what? For others, it's to oil all the door hinges, or to reach a round number when filling up, so well... There is no silly little kif I say!
And lately, a client has given me a doubt:
"Do I have to specify the style of my alternative text in the
A client<a>in addition to the style assigned in theof my tag<img>? "
Well, let's save time: the answer is no! According to my tests, there is no need to specify the style of the alternative texts in the <a>. But this is the opportunity for me to make a small point, to test the support of the formatting of these alternative texts, with my favorite tool, I named : EmailonAcid... So ok, you're going to tell me that Litmus has already made this kind of article. That's true. But it was not in French... Checkmate...
I have done many and many tests to know and understand the properties supported and accepted by the different webmails and email software. And, as Christ offered his body, I offer you the result of my many hours of research (Yes, modesty overwhelms me, but so what?) Like the mothers and fathers who prepare nice little snacks in their children's bags before leaving for school, I have prepared and summarized all this in a nice little chart that stings the eyes:
I strongly advise you to download the image of the tablebecause here, in terms of readability, we are at the limit!
For this test, I have only retained some properties that seem to me to be important for the graphic formatting of a text : color, font-family, font-weight, font-style, word-spacing, letter-spacing, background-color, text-decoration, text-transform, text-shadow, text-indent and text-align. I think, in my humble opinion, that we can already achieve great results with these few properties. You will notice (and you are perceptive, you rascals!) that some lines in this table include question marks. In fact, some webmails or email software do not allow (at least via Emailonacid) to obtain a rendering when the images are disabled or not displayed. So in these cases, there are still some shadows on the support of the properties I want to test.
The most common and best-supported properties remain the first seven. Not surprisingly, we note that browsers also participate in the good support (or not) of the different properties. You will note that IE 10 or IE 11 does not really participate in an optimized display of alternative texts (Yes, you can say that). On the other hand, good note for Firefox which goes as far as to support, sometimes, the totality of the properties! And then I say "I'm buying!" Ah ah what a poilade! Come on, I let you quietly add this little table or this page directly in your favorites, I know that it will become a faithful friend of your moments of integration (and doubt!)
See you soon, #emailfoufous!