mailchimp: image quality low + no space between pic and text

Hi Sam! Happy to help get this worked out with you.

Are you selecting the Large or Full image size in the plugin’s options?

I do see in your feed that the images are very very large 2048px x 1638px:
<description><![CDATA[<img width="1638" height="2048" src="https://buttermilkbysam.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/oneyolksixcookies.jpg" class="webfeedsFeaturedVisual wp-post-image" alt="chocolate chunk cookies" style="display: block; margin: auto; margin-bottom: 5px;max-width: 100%;" />This is the quickest way to chocolate chip cookie heaven I know: soft, chewy and packed to the rim with chocolate. It’s a scaled down recipe of my extra rich cccs (also known as lazy girl cccs) and makes maximum use of the right ingredients...

So if Mailchimp is showing them small, lower quality, etc, then be sure the “Resize images” checkbox is not checked on the RSS URL page.

Let me know on the above and we can see if that helps.

Rob

This seems to work – thank you!

Any way to put a bit of space between the image and the text? I thought to use *|RSSITEM:DATE|* and *|RSSITEM:CONTENT_TEXT|* with a space in between but the former doesn’t work.

Ah sure, you can add regular HTML between those merge tags, try something like this?:

*|RSSITEM:TITLE|*
<p> </p>
*|RSSITEM:DATE|*
<p> </p>
*|RSSITEM:CONTENT|*

Or, use some custom CSS to add padding or spacing around the image. For example, this CSS would make the images full-width above the text, with 20px of space on top and bottom:

<style>
.mc-rss-item-img {
width: 600px;
max-width: 100%;
?margin-top:20px;
margin-bottom:20px;
}
</style>

Let me know if that helps?

• This reply was modified 4 years, 11 months ago by Yui.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 11 months ago by Yui. Reason: please use CODE button for proper formatting

I am having the same problem when attempting to achieve the same goal as buttermilkbysam.

To get space between image and text, I would have thought that the correct setting to change would have been the ‘Set the spacing between text and feed images’ setting in the plugin. No matter what I input into this field, the space between the text and the image appears the same in Mailchimp preview. Does this setting not work?

My images are also appearing bad quality in the Mailchimp preview. I have set them to ‘medium’ in the plugin, and set the ‘medium’ field in WordPress to be 600px max width and 600px max height (even though my images are more landscape than square). Are these the correct settings to enable my featured image to display at 600px wide in the email and with unknown height but in ratio to the original?

Can you tell me where the RSS URL page is that I should make sure that the “Resize images” checkbox is not checked on? I can’t find it. Do you mean in Mailchimp, WordPress or the plugin?

buttermilkbysam if you have discovered a way of displaying only an excerpt of the text, as you said you wished to, I would be very grateful if you could post instructions for achieving it. I am using the ‘excerpt’ field in WordPress, but can’t see a related RSS merge tag for this field.

I have also tried that suggested CSS. Where is that supposed to go? I have tried adding it to additional CSS in WP and it doesn’t work either.

Thank you again. Can you tell me where exactly to add that custom CSS? Is it in mailchimp, or somewhere in wordpress?

@theladycatelyn: when building the mailchimp campaign, on the RSS feed page (the first one for me), you’ll see an option to ‘send only on these days’. Right below it is a checkbox that says ‘Resize RSS feed images to fit template’. Unchecking that box worked for me (got the images to show at the correct quality).

Using *|RSSITEM:CONTENT|* got me the highlighted image and a block of text. I am not able to control how much text is selected and where the cut off is. Still working on that, if it is at all possible to control. Also don’t have a space between the image and the paragraph, which is ugly. Need to figure out where to put that custom CSS.

Hi @5starplugins, would you be able to offer us some help on this?

@asaadfilho Thanks for the tag, I somehow missed the post notifications.

@buttermilkbysam and @theladycatelyn Sorry for the delay. In general, it’s best to start your own thread, because questions and site details diverge and become unique.

Generally speaking, our plugin options affect the raw RSS feed. Mailchimp then often strips out a lot of those options and the styling itself, requiring it’s own custom CSS, mentioned above. Mailchimp CSS is added in Mailchimp, in the email template at the very top is best, using the <> code icon.

Be sure the Resize images in unchecked on the Mailchimp RSS URL page, and if Medium is still not displaying well, try Large or Full. If you change the Medium dimensions, you have to rebuild your thumbnails (there are a few plugins for that) for that new dimensions to take effect on already uploaded images.

The Excerpt setting is in WordPress under Settings > Reading, choosing Summary or Full, as well as the number of posts in the raw feed.

The Mailchimp merge tag for showing the excerpt would be RSSITEM:CONTENT, and the full text (regardless of the WordPress setting I belive) is RSSITEM:CONTENT_FULL.

The length of the excerpt is controlled by WordPress default value of 55 words, and the theme may have an option to change that as well, but the “Advanced Excerpt” plugin can customize many things regarding the excerpt as well. I will look into adding an option to our plugin for changing the excerpt length so that it’s built-in, to bring more value to the plugin and not require additional work to get the feed looking the way you want.

I will also look into adding an option “Include Mailchimp CSS” for including some default Mailchimp custom CSS according to the plugin options set, and look into other services as well.

Please follow up if you’re still having issues, happy to help. If you upgrade to the Premium version, even using the free 14 day trial, we offer Premium support and one-on-one ticketing via Contact on our support site https://support.5starplugins.com/