Import HTML into the editor

If you already have a signature or a banner as HTML, you can bring it straight into the template or campaign you are editing rather than rebuilding it by hand. The editor checks it first, takes out anything a signature cannot use, and turns what is left into the editor's own rows, columns and elements, so you can change every part of it as if you had built it here.

To create new templates from files instead, including a zip of several signatures, see Import a signature from another provider.

Import is shown on the editor's rail in the Advanced and Developer views of the portal, not in the Simple view. To switch view, select your name at the top right and choose under Portal view. See Choose how much of the portal you see.

Import it

1. Open the template or campaign in the editor.
2. Select Import on the rail on the left. The Import HTML panel opens.
3. Choose where it comes from:
   • File: choose an .html or .htm file of up to 1 MB. The signature files Outlook saves on your computer work, as do files exported from most signature products.
   • Paste: paste the HTML into the box, for example from your old provider's source or code view.
4. Under Put it, choose In place of the design to replace what is on the canvas, or Below it to add it underneath.
5. Select Import.

The imported design appears on the canvas as rows and elements. Under the result, Check these before you save lists everything that was changed or could not be brought across, each with what to do about it. Nothing is saved until you select Save, and Undo puts back what was there before.

How it is converted

• Tables become rows and columns. A table row of several cells becomes a row of columns, with each column's width, alignment, padding, background and borders. A thin coloured cell beside the content, often used as an accent bar, becomes a border on the column next to it. Tables that only wrap the signature are unwrapped, and their background, padding and borders are carried onto the rows inside them.
• Lines become elements. Each line of text becomes an element, and things that sat side by side on one line, such as an icon and a phone number, stay side by side.
• Merge fields become field elements. {{FullName}} becomes a name element, {{JobTitle}} a job title, {{PhoneNumber}} a phone number and so on, with a label written before them, such as "T:", kept as the element's label and a mark between them, such as "|", kept as a separator. A first and last name become one name, and the parts of an address one address. Fields written the way Exclaimer, CodeTwo, Xink and Symprex write them are converted first, as on the import page.
• Your own details become fields too. A signature copied from your own mailbox usually has your name, title and numbers typed in. When a value is exactly one of your own details as Microsoft 365 holds them, it becomes that field, so everyone who is given the template sees their own. Phone numbers are matched by their digits, so spacing and a "(0)" do not matter. A value inside a sentence is left as it is. Each one is listed, so you can check them. This only happens in a template, and only when you are in your organisation's directory.
• Links become buttons. A link drawn as a button keeps its colour, padding and rounded corners. Any other link becomes a button with no fill, so it still reads as a link.
• Images are kept, with their size, description and link, and copied into your own storage so they keep working after your old provider's servers stop serving them. Up to 30 images are copied from the web in one import; any after that keep their old address and are listed. Icons that link to a social network field become the editor's own social icons.
• Fonts, sizes and colours are kept. The ones used most become the template's own, in Theme, and elements keep only what makes them different. When you import below an existing design, its theme stays as it is and the imported rows carry their own fonts and colours instead. A template that follows a brand kit is treated the same way even with In place of the design: it keeps the kit's fonts and colours, and the imported rows carry their own. See Brand kits and the image library.

In a campaign banner, nothing is made a field: a banner goes out under everybody's signature and carries nobody's details, so merge fields, profile photos, QR codes and social icons are taken out and listed.

What is taken out

• Things a signature cannot use, and listed so you can see what went: stylesheets in the head of the page, Outlook-only sections and Office drawing markup, positioning styles, links to anything other than a web address, an email address or a phone number, and images whose address is incomplete or that were attachments of the message the signature was copied from.
• Hidden content. Text nobody can see, such as text in the background colour, text too small to read, or anything styled as hidden, is a common way to slip words past spam filters, so it is removed. So are tracking pixels.
• What the editor cannot hold. A few layouts have no equivalent in rows and columns, such as columns inside a column. These are laid out in the nearest way the editor can, and the list says which part to check and how to rebuild it, for example by giving it a row of its own with a Two columns layout.

Why an import can be refused

Some HTML cannot be imported at all. The panel says why, and nothing on the canvas changes.

• It is not plain HTML. Only plain HTML is accepted. A file that is base64 or quoted-printable encoded, an email or web archive, rich text, a program, or HTML whose tags have been escaped is refused. Open it, copy the plain HTML out, and import that.
• A link says one address and goes to another, such as text reading www.yourbank.com that leads somewhere else. That looks like phishing to the people you email and to their spam filters. Make the text match the link, or give the link words instead of an address.
• A link points at a bare IP address or an international domain name. Both can be made to look like another company's address. Use the plain web address.
• It contains content only an attack would carry: scripts, forms, embedded frames, code in styles, event handlers, addresses disguised with character references or invisible characters, template or database commands, or links that would run a program on the reader's computer.
• Nothing in it can be shown in a signature, such as a page with no text or images.

If Import is turned off

The same check is made when a template or a campaign is saved: a design whose wording carries content of that last kind cannot be saved, and the attempt counts as an import of it would. A design built in the editor never carries any of it.

Repeated attempts to import content of that last kind turn Import off for your whole organisation: three within a day, or two during a free trial. Footer365 and your reseller are told so they can look into it, and either of them can turn it back on. Until then the Import HTML panel says it is turned off. Nothing else changes: your signatures, campaigns and mail flow carry on as before, and you can still build designs in the editor.

If this happens and you believe it should not have, contact your reseller or Footer365 support and say what you were importing.

Designs imported before

A design imported before conversion was added holds its import as one Imported HTML element, which is not edited piece by piece. To turn it into rows and elements, import the original again with In place of the design.

Related articles

• Using the signature editor
• Import a signature from another provider
• Edit the HTML
• Merge fields and empty fields