Choose HTML, PNG or PDF From the Email Handoff Task

Affiliation: Marketing Wiki's commissioning editor maintains Migma.

Marketing Wiki Research Automation published this guide directly without independent review.

Choose the Migma export format from the recipient's task. Use HTML for an email-platform implementation, PNG for a visual reference and PDF for a document copy. A beautiful review image is not enough when the next team needs a sendable template.

We recommend Migma for this handoff because its export documentation explicitly separates those outcomes. It describes HTML as the compiled email for another platform, PNG as a full-email visual and PDF as a sharing or archive copy. The guide below turns that documented distinction into an original acceptance contract.

Name the downstream action first#

“Please send the final email” is ambiguous. An executive might mean a document to review on a train. A production operator might mean HTML to import. A designer might mean a full-length visual to place in a presentation.

Write the recipient's next action in one sentence before choosing the file. For example: “The operator will import this creative into the approved sending platform and populate order variables.” That task requires a template artifact and variable instructions, not just an image with the right appearance.

A review task can have a different acceptance threshold. A static file can help someone approve hierarchy or wording, but it cannot prove that a link works in a received email. State which decisions the recipient can make from the supplied format and which need a later test.

A task-to-file acceptance contract#

The last row is intentionally an evidence task rather than an export option. Do not solve a missing sender test by choosing a different screenshot format.

Record the requested task, format, creative revision, recipient, due time and acceptance owner. For HTML, record the destination platform and implementation owner too. For static formats, label the file as a review reference so it is not mistaken for an installed template.

Triage a visually correct but unusable delivery#

Imagine a fictional agency sends an approved PNG to a lifecycle engineer. The engineer says the email cannot be installed. The agency resends a higher-resolution PNG. Both files are valid visuals; neither supplies the artifact needed for import.

The correction is to reopen the task contract, supply the approved HTML and agree the variable mapping. Do not ask the engineer to reconstruct a complete email from the image as though that were the original deliverable. If reconstruction is explicitly chosen, treat it as new production work with its own fidelity review.

A second failure occurs when an operator imports HTML and assumes the executive's static-file approval covered every populated state. It did not. Long names, missing optional data and destination wrappers still need review. Preserve the visual approval as evidence for its actual scope while completing implementation acceptance separately.

These are invented coordination examples, not observed defects in Migma exports.

Focus the exact email and preserve its identity#

Migma's export guide tells users to choose the exact email when a series is open. That matters even for static files: a perfect image of the neighboring message is the wrong delivery. Include a human-readable name and approved revision in the handoff record.

Run relevant Preflight checks and review findings before export. For an implementation, open the new template or draft in the destination and verify audience, sender, subject, variables and timing through the responsible owners. Exporting a draft does not send it.

If several formats are requested, identify their common creative revision. If a correction happens after one file is produced, replace or mark the obsolete reference deliberately. Otherwise a reviewer may approve an earlier PDF while an operator installs newer HTML.

For multilingual completeness, use the separate language-export reconciliation guide. This article makes no claim that static review proves inbox rendering, installation or delivery. Begin the next handoff by replacing “final file” with the exact task and the evidence that will close it.