Skip to main content

Building Modern HTML Emails Without Going Mad

Rémi Parmentier
Your instructor
Rémi Parmentier
Get a ticket

Workshop includes:

  • Snacks and drinks
  • Tea and Coffee
  • Lunch
  • Paper and pen/pencil

Full-day workshop • Monday, October 12th
Coding HTML emails is a beast of its own with lots of differences from coding web pages.

This workshop will make you reconsider everything you know about coding HTML emails and hopefully make you love the craft.


You will learn all the latest and most up to dates techniques to code HTML emails that work well in Gmail, Apple Mail, Yahoo, Outlook and most other popular email clients.

In this workshop, you’ll learn:

  • The most common gotchas and bugs. You’ll get to know the lastest bugs and hacks in email clients and you’ll learn how to deal with them.
  • How to master Outlook and Word’s rendering engine. How does Word’s rendering engine work? When and how to use tables for layouts. How to use conditional comments and what are mso specific properties?
  • Responsive emails. The fluid/hybrid and the mobile first approaches to make responsive emails without media queries.
  • Accessibility. Improving the accessibility of your emails by using semantic code and relevant alternative text.
  • Dark mode. Optimizing your emails for dark mode.
  • Test and audit. The best tools to test, audit, and debug your emails, from rendering to accessibility and code weight.
  • Interactive emails. How to use :hover, :checked, other native HTML/CSS interactions and forms in email.
  • AMP and Adaptive Cards. What are amp4email and Word adaptive cards, and how does this work and what can we do with it?

You will be taking home a couple of accessible templates that are responsive and interactive.

What prerequisites skills do you need?

Basic understanding of HTML and CSS.

What hardware/software do you need?

Bring a Mac or Windows computer with your favorite text editor. If you have an email template you’d like to improve, please bring it!

About Rémi Parmentier

Rémi Parmentier is a French front-end developer working at his own small web development agency, Tilt Studio. He loves to learn, and enjoys even more to teach.

This led him on a joyful quest to understand and demistify HTML emails coding. Rémi runs workshops, gives talks and writes articles on his blog to help others code better HTML emails.

Time & Location

This full-day workshop will take place the day before SmashingConf at a location to be decided. The workshop will be running from 9:30 AM to 5:30 PM on Monday, October 12th.

Schedule for Monday, October 12th

9:00 AM – Doors open, Registration
9:30 AM – Introduction & Kick-off
11:00 AM – Coffee Break
1:00 PM – Lunch
2:00 PM – Afternoon Session
3:30 PM – Coffee Break
5:30 PM – The End

Save 100 USD when signing up for the conference and a workshop!