Build responsive email templates faster with Maizzle

Stop wrestling with clunky table layouts and outdated inline styles. Build modern, responsive emails in a fraction of the time with Maizzle, a framework that brings the power of Tailwind CSS and modern web development tools to your email workflow.

Instead of fighting with legacy code, you can use simple HTML and utility-first CSS to create beautiful, consistent, and maintainable email templates.

Speed up your email development workflow

npx create-maizzle
cd my-project
npm install
npm run dev

Coding emails has traditionally been a slow and painful process. Developers spend hours writing nested tables, inlining CSS by hand, and testing across dozens of frustratingly inconsistent email clients like Outlook. Maizzle transforms this experience by introducing a modern, efficient workflow.

Use familiar tools like Tailwind CSS

<table class="w-full">
	<tr>
		<td>
			<h2 class="text-cool-gray-900 m-0 text-4xl font-bold">
				Nice to meet you!
			</h2>
			<p class="text-cool-gray-900 m-0 text-base dark:text-white">
				Hi [Customer Name], Thank you for signing up ...
			</p>
		</td>
	</tr>
	<table />
</table>

Maizzle's biggest advantage is its integration with Tailwind CSS through a custom preset called tailwindcss-preset-email. Instead of writing custom CSS and worrying about what email clients support, you use simple utility classes directly in your HTML.

Build complex layouts with intuitive classes like py-4, mx-auto, and text-lg. The preset automatically converts rem values to px, prefers HEX values over CSS variables, and includes custom screens and an extended spacing scale optimized for email clients. Maizzle's build process automatically compiles these into battle-tested, inlined CSS that works everywhere. This approach delivers key benefits for any development team:

• Develop faster: Write less code and build templates in record time. Utility classes eliminate the need for custom stylesheets and manual style inlining.
• Ensure brand consistency: Create a tailwind.config.js file to define your brand's colors, fonts, and spacing. Every email built will be perfectly on-brand.
• Reduce complexity: Forget about memorizing obscure CSS workarounds for old email clients. The framework handles the hard parts for you.

Move away from outdated methods

If you've ever had to code an email in HTML, you know the pain of wrestling with nested tables and finicky client-specific hacks. The traditional workflow is repetitive, error-prone, and difficult to maintain.

Maizzle follows a "Bring Your Own HTML" (BYOHTML) approach, giving you complete control over your email code. You write clean, semantic HTML using modern techniques, and the framework handles the compilation and optimization. While you can use modern HTML and CSS in many email clients, Maizzle provides progressive enhancement to ensure compatibility with older clients that still require table-based structures.

Why Maizzle is ideal for modern teams

Maizzle isn't just a tool; it's a new way of thinking about email production. It’s built for teams that value efficiency, maintainability, and high-quality design. By adopting a modern framework, you can produce better emails faster and with fewer headaches.

Traditional vs. Maizzle workflow: a comparison

Ultimately, the choice comes down to efficiency and scalability. While traditional methods get the job done, Maizzle provides a superior development experience that pays dividends in speed and quality. Understanding modern HTML email formats can help clarify why Maizzle's approach is so effective.

Enjoy key benefits for your team

Adopt Maizzle to bring the advantages of a modern development framework to your email production process.

• Faster development cycles: Build and iterate on templates quickly using reusable components and a streamlined workflow.
• Consistent styling across all emails: A single configuration file ensures every email adheres to your brand guidelines.
• Reduced complexity and fewer errors: The framework handles CSS inlining, attribute generation, and other tedious tasks automatically.
• Improved maintainability: Clean, readable code makes it simple for any developer to jump in and make updates.

How to get started with Maizzle

Getting up and running with Maizzle is straightforward, especially if you have experience with modern web development tools. The framework is designed to be approachable and easy to integrate into your existing workflow.

Set up your first project

To begin, you'll need Node.js (version 18.20.0 or higher) and npm installed on your machine. From there, you can scaffold a new project with a single command.

1. Create a new project: Run npx create-maizzle in your terminal. In the interactive setup wizard, specify the directory name (e.g., ./my-project), select the Default Starter, and choose Yes to Install dependencies.

Alternatively, you can create a project manually by running npx degit maizzle/maizzle my-project to download the official Starter template.

2. Navigate to your project: cd into the newly created directory (e.g., cd my-project).
3. Install dependencies: If you didn't install dependencies during setup, run npm install.
4. Start the development server: Run npm run dev. This command starts a local server at http://localhost:3000 with live-reloading, so you can see your changes in real-time as you code.

With the server running, you can start building your email. Edit the HTML files in the src directory using Tailwind CSS classes. Maizzle will automatically compile your code and serve it at http://localhost:3000 for development. For production builds, run npm run build to generate optimized HTML files in the build_production folder.

Customize your design system

The real power of Maizzle comes from its customizability. Open the tailwind.config.js file to define your brand's unique design system.

• Define your brand colors: Add your hex codes to the colors object.
• Set up your typography: Configure your brand's fonts, sizes, and weights.
• Customize spacing and borders: Ensure every element aligns with your design guidelines.

Once configured, these values become available as utility classes, enabling anyone on your team to build on-brand emails without ever writing a line of custom CSS.

Build environments and configuration

Maizzle uses a powerful build system based on Environments, which allow you to define distinct build scenarios for different stages of your email workflow. Each environment is customized through JavaScript config files (like config.development.js and config.production.js), where you can:

• Configure CSS inlining settings
• Set HTML minification options
• Define PostHTML plugins for templating
• Specify output directories
• Import packages and set options programmatically

This flexibility makes Maizzle powerful for teams that need to work with different email sending services (ESPs) and deployment scenarios.

Embrace a modern approach to email design

Switching to a framework like Maizzle is more than a technical upgrade—it's a strategic move to improve how your team creates and manages email campaigns. By leaving behind the slow, manual processes of the past, you free up your developers to focus on what truly matters: creating effective, engaging email experiences.

Produce higher-quality emails

A streamlined workflow leads directly to a higher-quality output. When developers aren't bogged down by repetitive tasks, they have more time to focus on strategic design and user experience.

• Build with confidence: Maizzle's compiled code is tested across all major email clients, so you can be sure your designs will render correctly.
• Focus on design, not hacks: Spend your energy perfecting the user journey instead of troubleshooting rendering bugs in Outlook.
• Implement advanced features: Use Maizzle's powerful features, like components, expressions, and transformers, to add dynamic content and other advanced functionality. Transformers handle tasks like CSS inlining, attribute generation, and HTML optimization automatically.

By following modern best practices for email design, you can ensure your campaigns not only look great but also drive results. The efficiency gains from Maizzle directly translate into more polished, effective, and impactful emails.

Future-proof your email workflow

Adopting a modern framework ensures your team's skills and processes stay relevant. As email clients evolve, Maizzle is updated to keep pace, protecting you from future compatibility headaches. This forward-thinking approach is backed by impressive email marketing data, which shows that modern, responsive designs consistently outperform static templates.

Stop coding emails like it's 2005. Embrace the speed, consistency, and power of a modern framework like Maizzle, and start building better emails today.

Common questions about Maizzle

Here are answers to some common questions developers have when considering a switch to the Maizzle framework.

Is Maizzle difficult to learn?

If you're already familiar with HTML and Tailwind CSS, you'll feel right at home with Maizzle. The learning curve is minimal because you're using tools you already know. The framework handles the email-specific complexities behind the scenes, so you can focus on building.

For those new to Tailwind CSS, the initial adjustment involves getting used to utility classes, but most developers pick it up quickly and appreciate the speed it offers.

How does Maizzle handle email client quirks?

Maizzle is designed specifically to address the inconsistencies across different email clients, from modern apps like Gmail and Apple Mail to legacy clients like Outlook.

It automatically:

• Inlines all your CSS for maximum compatibility using PostHTML plugins.
• Generates table-based layouts that are bulletproof.
• Adds special attributes and fixes to prevent common rendering issues.
• Provides Outlook-specific components like VML buttons for complex styling.

Outlook-specific components

Maizzle includes specialized components for Outlook compatibility, such as:

• VML Button component: Creates bulletproof buttons that work in Outlook using Vector Markup Language (VML)
• MSO utilities: Special utility classes like mso-hide-all and mso-color-alt-[#ffcc00] for Outlook-specific styling
• Conditional comments: Automatic handling of Outlook-specific code blocks

These components ensure your emails render correctly across all versions of Outlook, from the legacy desktop versions to the modern web-based Outlook.

Can I integrate Maizzle with my current tools?

Yes. Maizzle is highly adaptable and can be integrated into most marketing automation or development workflows. You can use it to create master templates for your ESP, connect it to a CMS to pull in content dynamically, or use it as a standalone tool for rapid prototyping.

Because the final output is just a single HTML file, it's compatible with virtually any platform that allows you to import custom HTML emails.

Implementing these best practices for email design requires deep technical expertise, especially when ensuring flawless rendering across dozens of email clients. If you want to deploy high-performance email campaigns without the technical headache, craftingemails specializes in designing and coding bespoke, pixel-perfect email templates for SaaS and eCommerce. Let us handle the complexities of responsive code and accessibility, so you can focus on what you do best: building relationships with your customers. Visit craftingemails to learn more.