There has been a great deal of discussion over the past few days concerning Outlook 2010 and Microsoft’s decision to continue to use Microsoft Word to render HTML emails. When Outlook 2007 was first released, Microsoft switched the email rendering engine used in previous versions of Outlook (2000, 2003) from Internet Explorer to Microsoft Word. This caused some major differences in the way HTML emails were displayed since the engine changed from a web browser to word processing software. As a result, support for a number of CSS properties, background images, HTML forms, and animated .gifs was removed.
The current email landscape is very unique and diverse. Emails clients and ISPs each display HTML emails differently due to varying support for HTML and CSS. Unlike the web, there are no set standards in place to govern which HTML attributes and CSS properties email clients should support. Efforts have been made over the past few years by the Email Standards Project to work with email client developers to improve the support of web standards in email. Much of the buzz surrounding Outlook 2010 is a result of the Twitter campaign the group behind the project launched to bring their concerns to Microsoft’s attention. Microsoft has responded with an explanation of their decision to use Word as Outlook’s email editor.
Based upon the Email Standards Project testing with the Outlook 2010 beta, no significant changes were reported. The same display issues that are present in Outlook 2007 remain in 2010. Thankfully, if you have optimized your emails to display properly in 2007 you should be in good shape when 2010 is released next year. Until the final version of the software is available, we won’t know for sure what other differences exist. However, the transition from Outlook 2007 to 2010 shouldn’t be as jarring as it was when we switched from 2003 to 2007.
It’s important to remember that the email landscape is in a constant state of flux, with email clients adding or removing support for various HTML attributes and CSS properties. Because of this, you must remain diligent in your testing efforts to ensure that your subscribers are treated to the most positive inbox experience. Regardless of the outcome, we’ll do our best to provide you with the information necessary to create emails that display the way you intended.
If you are looking for tips on how to code emails for proper display in Outlook 2007, please reference our whitepaper.
For other email design tips please read Email Marketing Design: The New Essentials.
The current email landscape is very unique and diverse. Emails clients and ISPs each display HTML emails differently due to varying support for HTML and CSS. Unlike the web, there are no set standards in place to govern which HTML attributes and CSS properties email clients should support. Efforts have been made over the past few years by the Email Standards Project to work with email client developers to improve the support of web standards in email. Much of the buzz surrounding Outlook 2010 is a result of the Twitter campaign the group behind the project launched to bring their concerns to Microsoft’s attention. Microsoft has responded with an explanation of their decision to use Word as Outlook’s email editor.
Based upon the Email Standards Project testing with the Outlook 2010 beta, no significant changes were reported. The same display issues that are present in Outlook 2007 remain in 2010. Thankfully, if you have optimized your emails to display properly in 2007 you should be in good shape when 2010 is released next year. Until the final version of the software is available, we won’t know for sure what other differences exist. However, the transition from Outlook 2007 to 2010 shouldn’t be as jarring as it was when we switched from 2003 to 2007.
It’s important to remember that the email landscape is in a constant state of flux, with email clients adding or removing support for various HTML attributes and CSS properties. Because of this, you must remain diligent in your testing efforts to ensure that your subscribers are treated to the most positive inbox experience. Regardless of the outcome, we’ll do our best to provide you with the information necessary to create emails that display the way you intended.
If you are looking for tips on how to code emails for proper display in Outlook 2007, please reference our whitepaper.
For other email design tips please read Email Marketing Design: The New Essentials.
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