# Email Builder

Design emails with the visual block editor, a rich-text editor, or raw HTML.

The **Email** step of the campaign builder lets you design your email in whichever way
suits you: a visual block editor for building layouts without code, a rich-text editor for
simple formatted messages, or a raw HTML view for full control. The same editor is used for
[templates](https://sendbeam.io/docs/templates).

## Builder Overview

The Email step has four views, switched with the tabs above the editor:

- **Visual** — the block editor. A palette of blocks on the left, the canvas in the
  middle, and a properties panel for the selected block. New campaigns open here, with a choice of
  starter layouts or a blank canvas.
- **Edit** — a rich-text editor with a toolbar for bold, italic, underline,
  paragraphs, lists, alignment, links and images.
- **Preview** — the rendered email, with a desktop and mobile toggle.
- **HTML** — the raw source. Paste your own markup here.

Below the editor, the **Merge tags** buttons insert personalisation tags, and an
optional **plain text** box holds the text-only version of the email (generated
automatically if left empty).

> Start from one of the built-in starter layouts (Welcome Email, Newsletter, Product Announcement,
> Sale / Promotion, Event Invitation or Simple Text) rather than a blank canvas if you want a
> sensible structure to customise.
> 

## Available Blocks

The following block types are available in the Visual view:

- **Header** — a heading line for the top of the email or a section.
- **Text** — a paragraph block for body copy, with an optional heading rendered as its own line above it. The most common block.
- **Image** — a picture with alt text and an optional link. **Upload** a
  PNG, JPEG, GIF or WebP from your computer (up to 2 MB; anything wider than 1,600 pixels is shrunk in
  your browser first), pick one you uploaded before from the **Library**, or paste the URL
  of an image you already host. The Feature block's picture works the same way. Uploaded images are
  stored per workspace with a cap that depends on the plan, and removing one from the library breaks it
  in any email that still uses it.
- **Button** — a styled call-to-action button with a label and URL.
- **Divider** — a horizontal rule used to visually separate sections; its settings hold the line colour and the padding around it.
- **Spacer** — an invisible block that adds vertical whitespace between other
  blocks.
- **Columns** — a multi-column layout for side-by-side content.
- **Social Links** — a row of social icons with the URLs you set.
- **Footer** — small print with an unsubscribe link and a "View in browser" link
  (`{'{{web_version_url}}'}`) built in. The unsubscribe link is added on send if
  you leave it out; the "View in browser" link is not — it exists only where the tag is. Remove the
  block that holds it and the builder says so, with Undo; the Review step repeats the notice.

Seven more blocks cover the layouts people otherwise hand-code:

- **Feature** — an image (uploaded or by URL) beside a heading, a paragraph and a button; image left or right. Stack two or three for a product update.
- **List** — bullet points, one per line, with an optional heading.
- **Quote** — a pulled quote with an attribution, for testimonials and reviews.
- **Poll** — one question and two to five answer buttons, each with an optional tag for whoever chooses it; each recipient's click is their answer, and the campaign's report shows the split. See [In-email polls](https://sendbeam.io/docs/campaigns/polls).
- **Video** — email clients cannot play video, so this is a thumbnail that links to it, with a caption.
- **Latest posts** — filled with a feed's new posts by [RSS to email](https://sendbeam.io/docs/rss); empty in ordinary campaigns.
- **HTML** — your own markup, rendered as written, for the one thing the blocks don't do.

Click a block in the palette to append it, or drag it onto the canvas. On the canvas, drag the
handle to reorder blocks and use the cross to delete one. Undo and redo are in the toolbar
(Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Shift+Z).

## Draft from a brief

Where the assistants are switched on for your workspace, the starter picker offers **Draft from a brief**: describe the email — who it is for, what it says, what the reader should do — and a draft
lands on the canvas as ordinary blocks for you to edit. It is written from your brief alone, uses only
merge tags your workspace has, always ends with the footer that carries the unsubscribe link, and
nothing is sent or saved until you do it. Each plan includes a daily allowance of drafts per workspace.

## Styling Your Email

Select a block to edit it in the properties panel. Depending on the block you can set its text,
URL, image source, alignment (left, centre, right), and colours. The starter layouts come with
coordinated colours you can adjust block by block.

For anything the panel does not offer — custom fonts, background images, bespoke spacing —
switch to the **HTML** view and edit the markup directly.

## Preview, Rich Text and HTML Views

Use the **Preview** view to see the rendered email. The desktop and mobile toggle
narrows the frame so you can catch layout issues before sending.

The **Edit** view is a rich-text editor over the same HTML: handy for quick copy
changes to an email you built visually, or for writing a simple message without blocks at all.

If you need full control over the HTML — for example, to paste a template from another tool or
add custom CSS — use the **HTML** view:

1. Switch to **HTML**.
2. Paste or edit the markup.
3. Switch to **Preview** to check the rendered result.
4. Continue to **Review** when you are happy.

> The views share one HTML document. Changes made in Visual overwrite the HTML, so once you have
> edited the HTML or rich text by hand, avoid going back to Visual for that campaign — the block
> editor cannot read arbitrary markup. When you reopen a draft to edit it, the builder starts in
> the HTML view for the same reason.
>

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Source: https://sendbeam.io/docs/campaigns/email-builder