Create and edit templates

This page shows how to create a template in the dashboard or with the API, how each of the three editors works, and how to manage templates from the template list. It’s for anyone who designs emails, whether you work in code or not.

Create a template

1. Open Templates. Go to Email Marketing›Templates and select Add template.

2. Name it. Enter a Name, such as Welcome email. Emailit fills in the Alias from the name, for example welcome-email.

3. Check the alias. The alias is how your code and automations refer to the template. It can use lowercase letters, digits, _ and -, up to 191 characters. If the alias already exists, the dialog shows Alias already exists, and the new template becomes an unpublished version of the existing one.

4. Choose an editor. Pick Dragit Editor (the default), HTML Editor or Rich Text Editor. You can’t switch an existing template to another editor in the dashboard, so choose the one you want to keep.

5. Set the defaults. Optionally enter a Subject, which can contain Temple placeholders, and a From address such as Acme <hello@acme.com>. Both are defaults that a send can override.

6. Create and design. Select Create. The template opens in its editor. Design the content, then save.

To set a Reply-To address or a separate plain-text body, use the API.

Create a template with the API

Call Create a template with a Full Access key. editor can be dragit, tiptap (Rich Text), html or text, and defaults to html.

curl https://api.emailit.com/v2/templates \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $EMAILIT_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "name": "Welcome email",
    "alias": "welcome-email",
    "editor": "html",
    "from": "Acme <hello@acme.com>",
    "reply_to": "support@acme.com",
    "subject": "Welcome to Acme, {{first_name|\"there\"}}",
    "html": "<p>Hi {{first_name|\"there\"}}, thanks for joining.</p>",
    "text": "Hi {{first_name|\"there\"}}, thanks for joining."
  }'

The response has status 201 and the template under data. If the alias is new, the template is published right away.

Choose an editor

Dragit editor

Dragit is a drag-and-drop email builder that opens full screen.

• Drag blocks such as text, images and buttons into the layout, and adjust their content and styles.
• Upload images with the built-in file manager. They’re stored in your workspace and served from a hosted URL.
• Insert variables from the merge fields menu: First name, Last name, Email, and your contact custom fields under Custom fields. The unsubscribe link is available as a special link type.
• Your work is saved automatically as you edit. Close the editor to go back to the template page.

Dragit templates keep their design as Dragit JSON as well as HTML, so you can export the JSON and import it into another workspace. See Import and export.

Rich text editor

The Rich Text editor opens full screen with a formatting toolbar: undo and redo, headings 1 to 3, bulleted and numbered lists, block quotes, bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, links and text alignment.

• Select the Variables button (the @ icon) in the toolbar to insert a variable at the cursor.
• Enter Preview text at the top to set the line that inboxes show after the subject. Emailit adds it as hidden text at the start of the email.
• Select Save to keep your changes. On save, Emailit applies a sans-serif font to every element so the email looks consistent across mail clients.

HTML editor

The HTML editor shows your code, with line numbers and syntax highlighting, together with a live preview. Switch the preview between Desktop and Mobile. Below the preview, Available variables lists the placeholders you can type into your HTML. Select Save to keep your changes.

The preview shows placeholders as written. It doesn’t render Temple conditionals or fill in values.

Variables in the editors

All three editors offer the same variables:

Who fills them in depends on how the template is sent:

• Campaigns fill all of them from the recipient’s contact record, and {{unsubscribe_url}} with their unsubscribe link. See Campaign merge tags.
• API sends fill only what you pass in variables, using the same names. For {{cf.plan}}, pass "variables": { "cf": { "plan": "Pro" } }. Anything you don’t pass is left empty.
• Contact automations fill {{first_name}}, {{last_name}} and {{email}} from the contact. Custom fields are available as {{custom_fields.<key>}}, and {{unsubscribe_url}} isn’t filled.

See Temple for the full rules.

Manage templates

Email Marketing›Templates shows one card per alias, with a preview, the name, the alias, an editor badge and the number of versions. Only the published version of each alias appears in the grid. Find drafts in the Versions panel of the template page.

• Search by name or alias.
• Sort by Newest first, Oldest first, Recently updated, Recently published, Name A-Z or Name Z-A.
• Filter by editor.
• Select Import to add a template from a file. See Import and export.

Each card’s menu has these actions:

The template page

Select a card to open its template page. It shows the status (Published or Draft), alias, editor, creation date, name, subject, From, Reply-To and ID, a preview, and the Versions panel.

• Publish appears on draft versions and makes this version the live one for the alias.
• Open Editor opens the content in the template’s editor.
• The menu has Edit (change the name, alias, subject and From), Duplicate Template, the export options and Delete.
• New Version in the Versions panel copies an existing version into a new draft. See Template versions.

Related

• Template versions
• Temple template language
• Templates API reference
• Custom fields