groaningeek,
Unfortunately, there is no standard way to create & send HTML email that all email vendors & domains support. If what you are doing works for you, then just continue to do it.
For reasons which I don't care to go into right now, there are a lot of hard-core netizens out there who are dead-set against HTML email. They believe that email was, and is always meant to be in plain text only. The most extreme of these users won't even accept email if it is composed in HTML instead of plain text.
It is for this reason, that I recommend you think about three things:
1. If you are creating a mailing list, think about offering your subscribers the option of receiving HTML or plain text emails. This will make those hard-liners happy (and willing to subscribe).
2. Send your HTML emails with a plain text counterpart. Many email clients do this automatically, but check the documentation to make sure. If you are using some sort of scripting language (like PHP, ASP) to compose & send the emails, check the documentation to find out how to do this.
3. Always post your HTML newsletter to a webpage and send your users a plain text link to that webpage in case the software they are using does not support HTML emails.
Anyway, good luck.
-Ron
We all play from the same deck of cards, it's how we play the hand we are dealt which makes us who we are. -Me
murof siht edisni kcuts m'I - PLEH