Same page link within email

Question

I swear I had this working last week, but... Does anyone know how to get same-page hrefs working within an email? I'm using this format;

<a href="#targetelement">quicklink</a>

...

<div id="targetelement">Hello there</div>

Which works in a standard webpage naturally, but it doesn't do anything when viewed in an email client (tested in Thunderbird and Gmail so far). Is same-page linking even possible within an email? If not, are there alternative methods?

UPDATE:
Using an id actually does work in Thunderbird, unless the email has been forwarded, then it stops working. id doesn't work in Gmail, name doesn't work in either.

If it doesn't work in a webmail viewer, you should probably check the source code it is actually sending to the browser. That might give you some insight into what the webmail viewer is actually doing to break your code (maybe it modifies or strips IDs, for example). As for desktop applications: you're probably out of luck as their HTML support can be rather sketchy. — Alan Plum, Mar 10 '10 at 12:09

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 10 '10 at 11:25

3

Try this now. :)

<a href="#targetelement">quicklink</a>

...

<a name="targetelement">Hello there</a>

answered Mar 10 '10 at 11:25

raj

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Why would this work when an id wouldn't? Email clients generally use the same rendering engines as browsers (Thunderbird uses Gecko and GMail uses … whatever browser the use uses). (OK, I can see why it **might** work in GMail, it depends on what Google do to sanitize the HTML, but desktop clients?) – Quentin Mar 10 '10 at 11:30
@MatW. Are u sure the mail is an HTML ? – raj Mar 10 '10 at 11:53
1

Erm... No. Actually IDs can even override names. There's no real reason to use the name attribute outside of forms anymore (certainly not for anchors). HTML5 drops the name attribute on anchors completely, I think. See http://stackoverflow.com/questions/484719/html-anchors-with-name-or-id also http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40-971218/struct/links.html#h-12.2.3 – Alan Plum Mar 10 '10 at 12:00
Sry, deleted my earlier comment - I hadn't paid enough attention to your code and wasn't using an tag. That works in Gmail, but not Thunderbird. Gmail wants name and an tag as a target, Thunderbird wants id. – Mathew Mar 10 '10 at 12:06

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 10 '10 at 11:26

0

That would wholly depend on the mail client (desktop or web based), different clients use different rulesets and engines for parsing and displaying email so there is no definitive answer.

answered Mar 10 '10 at 11:26

code_burgar

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Rather than say there isn't one answer for all, you could at least illustrate an answer to *one* of the clients mentioned in my question. – Mathew Mar 10 '10 at 11:55
@MatW: Since your question was not "How do I make this work in one of these two email clients?" but included wording like "tested in Thunderbird and Gmail **so far**" it did not seem that you wanted a quick fix for one of the available clients but an universal solution. – code_burgar Mar 10 '10 at 13:40
Fair enough, but then why take the time to type a non-answer? – Mathew Mar 10 '10 at 14:58

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 10 '10 at 12:54

0

Why not try

<a href="#targetelement">quicklink</a>

...

<a name="targetelement" id="targetelement">Hello there</a>

In the same link, not nice - but might get it to work in several clients.

answered Mar 10 '10 at 12:54

dikjones

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score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 05 '19 at 11:01

0

This Code is Working Fine!.

<a href="#test">Lorem Ipsum</a>
<div id="test">
<a href="test" name="test" jumpthis="test">Lorem Ipsum</a>
</div>

Remove the jumpthis="test" and the link did not work in Outlook 2013.

answered Feb 05 '19 at 11:01

Jithin PV

1

Same page link within email

4 Answers4