Format Emails in TrustPager Mail

Every email body that sends through TrustPager Mail now uses a rich-text formatting editor instead of a plain text box. You can add headings, bold and italic text, bullet and numbered lists, text alignment, hyperlinks, styled button links, inline images, and horizontal dividers — all without any developer help. Existing email bodies are preserved and displayed in the editor automatically.

The automation Send Branded Email step

The most powerful place to use the editor is the Send Branded Email action inside an automation. Open any automation at https://app.trustpager.com/auto/automations, then add or edit a Send Branded Email step. The Message field is the formatting editor.

Toolbar overview

The toolbar runs across the top of the editor. From left to right:

• Headings — a dropdown to apply H1, H2, or H3 heading styles, or revert to normal paragraph text.
• Bold / Italic / Underline — standard inline formatting. Select text first, then click the style.
• Bullet list / Numbered list — convert selected lines or the current paragraph to a list.
• Align left / Centre / Right — set horizontal alignment for the current block.
• Link — select text, click the link icon, and paste a URL to make a hyperlink.
• Button — inserts a styled button link. Enter the button label and the destination URL. Buttons render as a solid clickable element, ideal for calls to action.
• Image — inserts an inline image by URL. See the Images section below for details.
• Horizontal divider — inserts a full-width rule to visually separate sections.

Insert Variable

The Send Branded Email editor includes an Insert Variable control. Click it to open a list of available merge tokens for the current automation's trigger. Selecting a token inserts it into the email body as a double-brace merge field — for example {{contact.first_name}} or {{deal.name}}. The available tokens adapt to the trigger type, so an opportunity-stage trigger will offer different variables than a form-submission trigger.

Variables are resolved when the automation fires — each recipient sees their own personalised value.

Insert an image

Place your cursor where you want the image to appear, then click the image icon in the toolbar. The Insert Image dialog opens with three fields:

1. Image URL (required) — the direct, public URL of the image file. This must be a permanent, publicly accessible URL. See "Where to host your image" below.
2. Link URL (optional) — if you want the image to be clickable, paste the destination URL here. Leave blank for a static image.
3. Alt Text (optional) — a short description of the image for accessibility. Good practice to fill in.

Click Insert. The image appears in the editor. Save and activate the automation as normal.

Where to host your image

The image URL must be permanent and publicly accessible — not just accessible right now, but reliably so weeks or months from now. Automation emails may fire long after you configure them, and a broken URL means a broken image in every email sent after it expires.

What works:

• Your own website or CDN — any direct, public image URL from your own domain. This is the most reliable option — you control the hosting, and the URL will not expire.
• Imgur — free image hosting at https://imgur.com. Upload the image, right-click it on its page, and copy the direct image URL (ending in .png or .jpg). These URLs are permanent and work well in automation emails.

What will not work:

• Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive — these generate sharing links, not direct image URLs. Email clients cannot render them inline.
• Time-limited signed URLs from any cloud storage (including TrustPager file uploads at https://app.trustpager.com/files) — these expire after a few hours and will leave broken images in future sends.
• Social media platforms — image URLs from Instagram, Facebook, and similar sites typically block external hotlinking.

Sizing tips

TrustPager constrains images to the width of the email body, so an oversized image will not break the layout. That said, resize large images before uploading — a 1200 px wide image at 72 dpi is plenty for a banner. Large files load more slowly, and some email clients block images above a certain file size.

The editor on other surfaces

The same rich-text editor also appears in three other places:

• Compose Email window — the manual one-off email composer uses the same toolbar. Note: the Compose window does not have a variable inserter; you type the recipient's details directly.
• Birthday message settings — the birthday email body field uses the editor with a small set of fixed single-brace tokens shown beside the field, such as {first_name} and {company_name}.
• Booking and event notification settings — the notification email body field uses the editor with its own fixed tokens, such as {booker_name}, {event_type}, {date}, {time}, {meet_link}, and {duration}.

On those surfaces the available tokens are shown inline beside the field — there is no Insert Variable dropdown.

Troubleshooting

• Image shows as a broken icon — the URL is wrong, expired, or not publicly accessible. Test it by opening the URL in an incognito browser window. If you cannot access it there, neither can the recipient's email client.
• Image renders in the editor but breaks in sent emails — the URL was accessible when you configured the automation but has since expired. Switch to a permanent hosting option (your own domain or Imgur).
• Image appears very small or very large — the dimensions are set by the source file. Resize the image before uploading.
• Insert button is greyed out — the Image URL field is empty. The Image URL is the only required field.
• Variable did not resolve — literal token appears in the email — the token was typed manually rather than inserted via the Insert Variable control, or was copied from a different automation type. Use the Insert Variable dropdown to pick the correct token for the current trigger.