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07.

Real Email Styling with Inky & Foundation CSS

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To get this email looking really sharp, we need to improve the HTML and CSS.

Let's start with CSS. With standard website CSS, you've likely used a CSS framework like Tailwind (which our app uses), Bootstrap, or Foundation. Does something like this exist for emails? Yes! And it's even more important to use one for emails because there are so many email clients that render differently.

Foundation CSS for Emails

For emails, we recommend using Foundation as it has a specific framework for emails. Google "Foundation CSS" and you should find this page.

Download the starter kit for the "CSS Version". This zip file includes a foundation-emails.css file that's the actual "framework".

I already included this in the tutorials/ directory. Copy it to assets/styles/.

In our booking_confirmation.html.twig, the inline_css filter can take multiple arguments. Make the first argument source('@styles/foundation-emails.css') and use email.css for the second argument:

24 lines | templates/email/booking_confirmation.html.twig
{% apply inline_css(source('@styles/foundation-emails.css'), source('@styles/email.css')) %}
// ... lines 2 - 24

This will contain custom styles and overrides.

I'll open email.css and paste in some custom CSS for our email:

12 lines | assets/styles/email.css
.trip-name {
font-size: 32px;
}
.accent-title {
color: #666666;
}
.trip-image {
border-radius: 12px;
}

Tables!

Now we need to improve our HTML. But weird news! Most of the things we use for styling websites don't work in emails. For example, we can't use Flexbox or Grid. Instead, we need to use tables for layout. Tables! Tables, inside tables, inside tables. Gross!

Inky Templating Language

Luckily, there's a templating language we can use to make this easier. Search for "inky templating language" to find this page. Inky is developed by this Zurb Foundation. Zurb, Inky, Foundation... these names fit in perfectly with our space theme! And they all work together!

You can get an idea of how it works on the overview. This is the HTML needed for a simple email. It's table-hell! Click the "Switch to Inky" tab. Wow! This is much cleaner! We write in a more readable format and Inky converts it to the table-hell needed for emails.

There are even "inky components": buttons, callouts, grids, etc.

In your terminal, install an Inky Twig filter that will convert our Inky markup to HTML.

composer require twig/inky-extra

inky_to_html Twig Filter

In booking_confirmation.html.twig, add the inky_to_html filter to apply, piping inline_css after:

24 lines | templates/email/booking_confirmation.html.twig
{% apply inky_to_html|inline_css(source('@styles/foundation-emails.css'), source('@styles/email.css')) %}
// ... lines 2 - 24

First, we apply the Inky filter, then inline the CSS.

I'll copy in some inky markup for our email.

33 lines | templates/email/booking_confirmation.html.twig
{% apply inky_to_html|inline_css(source('@styles/foundation-emails.css'), source('@styles/email.css')) %}
<container>
<row>
<columns>
<spacer size="40"></spacer>
<p class="accent-title">Get Ready for your trip to</p>
<h1 class="trip-name">{{ trip.name }}</h1>
</columns>
</row>
<row>
<columns>
<p class="accent-title">Departure: {{ booking.date|date('Y-m-d') }}</p>
</columns>
</row>
<row>
<columns>
<button class="expanded rounded center" href="{{ url('booking_show', {uid: booking.uid}) }}">
Manage Booking
</button>
<button class="expanded rounded center secondary" href="{{ url('bookings', {uid: customer.uid}) }}">
My Account
</button>
</columns>
</row>
<row>
<columns>
<p>We can't wait to see you there,</p>
<p>Your friends at Universal Travel</p>
</columns>
</row>
</container>
{% endapply %}

We have a <container>, with <rows> and <columns>. This will be a single column email, but you can have as many columns as you need. This <spacer> adds vertical space for breathing room.

Let's see this email in action! Book a new trip for Steve, oops, must be a date in the future, and book!

Check Mailtrap and find the email. Wow! This looks much better! We can use this little widget Mailtrap provides to see how it'll look on mobile and tablets.

Looking at the "HTML Check", seems like we have some issues, but, I think as long we're using Foundation and Inky as intended, we should be good.

Check the buttons. "Manage Booking", yep, that works. "My Account", yep, that works too. That was a lot of quick success thanks to Foundation and Inky!

Next, let's improve our email further by embedding the trip image and making the lawyers happy by adding a "terms of service" PDF attachment.