Litmus Design Library guide

The Design Library in Litmus empowers brands to streamline and scale email production by making it easy to create, access, share, and collaborate on a common set of reusable templates and code modules in one centralized spot to create high-performing, on-brand emails quickly.

With the Design Library in Litmus, email developers can:

Define your brand's color palette
Create and manage reusable email templates
Share common, tested modules across your team
Organize reusable modules in custom categories
Centralize storage of and access to your core email “source code”—regardless of where your team is located or how many ESPs you use
Minimize errors and inconsistencies with built-in Litmus Email Previews
Control access to shared resources, and separate them by client, department, region, and more, using Subaccounts.

Navigating your Design Library

You can access your Design Library from the top navigation by choosing the Design link or from links in the Home and Build areas in Litmus.

From the Home dashboard, select the Go to Design Library button in the Build your email module to navigate to Design Library.

From the Build dashboard, choose the Go to Design Library button to navigate to your Design Library.Once you arrive in Design Library, you'll land on the Overview page where you can quickly create new templates and modular components. You'll also notice there are several sections available in the left-hand navigation: Colors (available on Litmus Enterprise plans only), Templates, Modules (including partials and snippets), and Module Categories (available on Litmus Enterprise plans only). Use the left-hand navigation menu to move between sections.

Choose any item in the library to view it. From the right sidebar, you will find a thumbnail preview of the item, when the last update was made to it, and who last worked on it. Select the code preview to copy code to the clipboard for use in Litmus or your code editor of choice.

Managing your Design Library

Roles and permissions

Need to control access to your team's Design Library? Litmus offers the following user roles to control who can access and manage your brand assets and modular components:

The Full, Admin, and Account Holder roles can all create, edit, and delete assets in the Design Library
Users with the Code Editor role (Litmus Enterprise plan only) can view the Design Library and use its assets when building emails, but cannot create, edit, or delete assets in the Design Library.
Users with the Content Editor role (Litmus Enterprise plan only) do not have access to the Design Library and cannot create, edit, or delete assets. They can, however, build emails using Templates and the Visual Editor in Litmus Builder.

Colors

Defining your brand's colors in Litmus allows for effortless on-brand email building. Easily reference your brand's colors when building in Litmus Builder's code editor and choose directly from your brand colors from the color pickers in the Visual Editor.

Note: Brand colors are a feature of Litmus Enterprise plans only.

Adding and managing Colors

To add a color, navigate to the Design Library and choose the New Color button in the upper right corner of your screen. Give your color a name and a six-digit hex value (e.g. "#eeb35b") then Save color.

To edit a color, simply select it and choose Edit color. To delete a color, select it and use the trashcan icon in the bottom right corner of the screen.

brand colors

Templates

Templates empower your team to create on-brand, error-free emails quickly. Instead of having to rewrite an entire email from scratch for every send, you can simply add copy, images, and links to an existing template before testing and sending it to your subscribers.

Creating and managing Templates

To create a Template, navigate to the Design Library and use the New Template button in the upper right hand corner of your screen. Give your Template a name and a new template editor window will open. When you’re done, use Ctrl+S or Cmd+S, or the File > Save menu to save your changes.

To edit a Template, simply select it and choose Edit Template. To rename a Template, select the name in the preview pane. To delete a Template, use the action menu at the bottom right corner of the preview pane.

Want some help getting started with snippets? Litmus offers a variety of off-the-shelf modules for you to use. Select New template, then in the template editor, choose Insert > Replace Template and you will see a gallery of available templates to choose from. Pick a template to load into the editor and customize. Want even more? There are a variety of additional templates to browse and add to your Design Library available in the Litmus Community.

templates

Modules

There are two types of modules in Litmus: partials and snippets. Partials are global modules that can be referenced in emails and templates, but are editable only at the global level. Snippets are modules that can be reused across emails and templates and are editable within the email or template they're included in. Read on for more details on these two types of reusable, modular content.

Snippets

Snippets are modules of reusable content that are ideal for elements that are commonly used across email designs. Snippets are the most flexible type of module and can be used for building emails with modular content in both the code editor and visual editor.

snippets in design library window

Creating and managing Snippets

To create a Snippet, navigate to the Design Library and select the New Snippet button in the upper right hand corner of your screen. On the next screen, give your Snippet a name and a trigger - a string of text that you will use to insert the Snippet in Litmus Builder's code editor.

To edit a Snippet, simply select it and choose Edit Snippet. You will be taken to the Snippets manager, where you can edit or rename the Snippet. To delete a snippet, use the action menu at the bottom right corner of the preview pane or delete from the Snippets manager.

Want some help getting started with snippets? Litmus offers a variety of off-the-shelf modules for you to use. To browse and add modules to your Design Library, visit the Litmus Community.

snippet editor window

Edit points in Snippets

To add an edit point inside a snippet, simply use any text inside of braces (i.e. {edit}). For example, if you have a snippet with a trigger of table1 that outputs <table width=“{edit}“>, after triggering the snippet with the tab key it will automatically jump to and highlight the {edit} point. Once the edit point is updated with its value, hitting the tab key again will jump to the next edit point of the snippet. There is no limit to how many edit points can be in a snippet

Partials

Partials are global, dynamic, reusable modules that can be used across multiple emails. Changes made to a partial will apply to every single email or template where that partial is referenced, saving time and eliminating the possibility of forgetting to update an email or template.

Creating and managing Partials

To create a Partial, navigate to the Design Library and select the New Partial button in the upper right hand corner of your screen. Give your Partial a name and a new editor window will open. When you’re done, use Ctrl+S or Cmd+S, or the File > Save menu to save your changes.

To edit a Partial, simply select it and select Edit Partial. To rename a Partial, choose the name in the preview pane. To delete a Partial, use the action menu at the bottom right corner of the preview pane.

partials showing in Design Library pane

Organizing modules

With categories in the Design Library in Litmus, you can organize your modules (Snippets and Partials) in one centralized location, making it easier for all team members to find content to build brand-compliant emails at scale, regardless of how many ESPs are being used.

Categories in Design Library are completely custom, making it easy to organize code modules by department, team, region, email type, or any other organizational structure. Plus, modules can be assigned to multiple categories making it easy to keep all resources current.

Modules left menu in the Design Library pane

Building emails with your Design Library elements

Using templates to build emails

Your Templates are available within Litmus for building new email campaigns quickly and easily. Either pick a Template when you start your new email or access your Templates from within Litmus Builder at any time.

template collection in Litmus Builder window

If you prefer to use your own code editor, select a Template and pick the code preview. The Template code is copied to your clipboard to use with your local development tools.

template code window to copy to clipboard

Using modules

Using snippets

Snippets can be inserted via drag-and-drop in the Visual editor. In the code editor, your Snippets can be inserted using the Insert menu or the trigger string you created.

If you prefer to use your own code editor, select a Snippet and select the code preview.The Snippet code is copied to your clipboard to use with your local development tools.

Using partials (global modules)

Partials can only be inserted via the code editor. Your Partials are accessible from the Insert > Partials menu.

If you prefer to use your own code editor, choose a Partial and select the code preview. The Partial code is copied to your clipboard to use with your local development tools.

partials code window to copy to clipboard

Using Colors

Colors can be chosen from the font and background color pickers in the Visual Editor in Litmus Builder.

Visual builder color picker locations