hermes-skills/skills/email/email-sender-formatting/references/data-cleanup-for-email.md

Data Cleanup & Formatting Consistency for Email Delivery

Formatting Consistency Rule (Jul 10, 2026) — CRITICAL

Once the user approves a format, all subsequent versions of the same email MUST use that format. Do not regress from HTML tables to plain text between iterations.

Violation pattern: First Apex registration preview used an HTML table with zebra rows, green checkmarks (✓), and red X marks (✗). User said "Looks perfect. Please now send to contact@." Subsequent previews fell back to plain-text ASCII tables. User tried multiple times to get the HTML table back and couldn't — called out as frustrating.

Rule: When iterating on an email based on user feedback:

1. Start with HTML tables for structured data (registration lists, status reports, comparison tables)
2. Use visual indicators: green checkmarks (✓) for completed/signed, red X (✗) for missing
3. Use zebra striping (alternating row colors) for readability
4. After each correction, re-send using the SAME HTML format — never downgrade
5. The user's approval of a format is a contract — don't change it

Data Normalization Rules (from raw database to email)

When pulling structured data from databases (WordPress WPForms, MariaDB) for email summaries:

Normalize names

• Apply proper case: name.title() or ' '.join(w.capitalize() for w in name.split())
• Never send all-lowercase or all-uppercase names from raw database entries

Simplify labels

• Convert raw package names to human-readable labels:
  • "NASA Registration w/ Upgraded Photo/Video Package - $2,332.00" → "Photo/Video"
  • "NASA Registration w/ Photo Package - $2,230.00" → "Photo"
  • "NASA Registration - $1,973.00" → "Basic"
• Decode HTML entities: $ → $

Consistent ASCII formatting

• Fixed-width columns with | separators
• = or - for section borders
• Right-pad names to consistent widths for alignment

Filter test data

• Exclude test transactions ($1.00 amounts, known test emails)
• Filter by payment amount threshold ($1,973+ is real)

Preview before send

• Always show Germaine the formatted preview
• Let him correct formatting/columns/labels before the email goes out