Getting Started with the Email Designer – Click Support

This article applies to Email Designer, our newest email editor.

In this quick start guide, we'll briefly cover all the features inside of the Email Designer.

To open the Email Designer, click the "Design your email" ribbon button within an Email Template or Email Send record with Editor Type = "Email Designer".

When you open the Email Designer, there are two primary sections:

Stage, which is where you drop content blocks and rows while designing. This is the section on the left side of the screen.
Sidebar, which is where many of the design elements can be customized. This is the section on the right side of the screen.

There is an icon that separates the stage and the sidebar. You can use this to minimize the sidebar at any time.

To begin designing on the stage, you must select a design element from the sidebar. The sidebar includes three tabs to help you create content.

Settings

The settings tab allows you to set defaults for your entire design. When working with rows and content, those design elements inherit these settings.

Content area width
Content area alignment
Background color
Content area background color
Background image
Default font
Link color

Rows

Rows are the primary structural element for designs created in the Email Designer. Within your rows, you can customize the column structure. With a multi-column row, you can place content side-by-side in your design. Most importantly, rows act as a container for all of your content blocks.

Selecting the Rows tab while no individual row is selected will allow you to drag and drop various row types into the design stage:

When an existing row is selected within the design stage, the following row properties will appear in the sidebar:

Row background color
Content area background color
Row Background image
Content area border
Content area rounded corners
Content area padding
Vertical alignment
Dynamic Content (set conditions to determine when the row appears)
Cards Style
Stack on mobile
Stack order on mobile
Hide on

As mentioned above, rows can include columns as well. As a result, further down in the row properties there is a second section called Columns Structure. You can use this section to modify the column structure. There is an + Add new button you can use to insert new columns. A separator icon populates between each column. Click and drag the icon to change the column structure.

For each individual column, you have the following options:

Column background color
Padding
Border

To toggle between columns, click on the column in the sidebar you want to modify. The selected column will be highlighted.

Content

There are several content blocks you can use while designing in the Email Designer. All content blocks include padding settings and hide-on settings in the sidebar.

Below we've listed all the available content blocks.

Mobile Design Mode

By default, the stage mimics what your design will look like on a desktop device. However, you can also use mobile design mode to build your content. This design mode uses a stage that mimics what the design will look like on a mobile device.

Most of the edits you make in mobile design mode are reflected on both the desktop and mobile versions. However, certain elements are marked with a mobile icon in the sidebar. These settings will only apply to the mobile version of your design.

For further information on this design mode, please see Mobile design mode.

Preview

The Email Designer contains a Preview button in the menu bar running along the top of the designer.

The preview feature is fairly self-explanatory. You can use this feature to see what your design might look like on a desktop, phone, or tablet. You can also use the dark mode toggle to see how dark mode settings may impact your design, and can set a custom view pane resolution to preview your design at specific resolutions.

The Preview view also gives access to Dynamic Preview - where you can preview the email as it will appear to a specific recipient - as well as the Inbox Preview and a Help button that links to our support site.

Note that the preview is an approximation based on the most popular devices and programs. This is particularly important when working with emails or using dark mode preview. Devices and email clients have different settings that may cause your design to render differently.

For further information, please see:

Dark Mode Preview

Send Test

The Email Designer contains a Send Test button in the menu bar running along the top of the designer.

Clicking the Send Test button will open a window where you can provide an email address for the test email to be sent to.

Note that test emails sent via the Send Test feature will not render dynamic personalization content. This is because the email is simply being sent to an email address, and thus does not have access to any Lead or Contact record from which to pull dynamic content.

Email Layouts

The Email Designer contains an Email Layouts button in the menu bar running along the top of the designer.

Clicking the Email Layouts button will open a window where you can select from various email layouts that Click provides as starting points for your email templates. Be aware that applying an email layout will overwrite any existing contents of your design stage.

Show Structure

The Email Designer contains a Show Structure button in the menu bar running along the top of the designer.

Clicking the Show Structure button will display dotted lines highlighting the structural skeleton of your design. This helps make it easier to understand how your design is put together so that you can make targeted changes and more easily ensure structural integrity.

Special Links

When highlighting text or clicking into a text-content area such as a Paragraph or Title block, you will see a pop-up text styling toolbar appear. In addition to the standard text styling and link creation capabilities, this toolbar contains a Special Links button used to add Unsubscribe, Web Content, and View in Browser links to your email design.

Clicking the Special Links button will open a window where you can select the type of Special Link you want to insert: Unsubscribe (Global or Subscription Management Page), Web Content (Profile Management Forms, Surveys, or Landing Pages), or View in Browser.

Comments

When any row or content block is selected, the properties sidebar will display a Comment button.

Clicking the Comment button opens a window where you can provide a comment on the selected block or row.

Entering a comment and clicking the Submit button will post the comment. Comments are a great collaboration tool. Each comment can be viewed, replied to, and marked as resolved within the relevant block or row's comments menu.

Custom Fonts

The Email Designer give you the ability to upload custom fonts for use in your designs. To add custom fonts, expand the ellipses at the top-right of the Designer and click Manage Custom Fonts.

Clicking the Manage Custom Fonts button opens a window where you can provide a CSS font URL, preview name, and a fallback font.

Once added, custom fonts will be available in the Email Designer's various font styling menus.

Help

The Email Designer contains a Help button in the menu bar running along the top of the designer.

Clicking the Help button will open Click's Support Site, where you can search for relevant information, get help from our AI Support Agent Lexi, or open a support ticket.

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