HTML email displayed wrong in Outlook 2007

[michaelzap]

Question: Why does most of the HTML email that I receive look terrible
in OL 2007? The same emails look fine in OL 2003 and any other email
client that I've tried, so I don't think that these are malformed in
any way (and viewing their source seems to confirm this). Except for
extremely simple HTML emails (tables with font colors), they all seem
to be displayed incorrectly, and sometimes the formatting errors are
serious enough to make these emails really ugly.

I am using Office Enterprise 2007 (although I had the same problem with
both the original beta and TR versions before). Windows XP with SP2 and
all updates. IE7, .Net 2 and all that stuff as well.

If the answer turns out to be that OL 2007 just plain breaks most HTML
email, then I'm going to be very unhappy.

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

Define "terrible" and "mailformed" please. An HTML source code example might be very useful.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

 

[michaelzap]

Terrible means that the emails have missing background colors,
incorrect block sizes, and other major aesthetic disruptions that are
not present in other email clients or if I copy and paste to a text
file and view them in Internet Explorer.

Malformed means that the email had some inherent problem (bad code, or
code not well-designed to be sent via email) that might explain why OL
2007 doesn't display it as intended.

Most of the HTML email that I receive seems to have this issue to some
extent. For example, ZDNet newsletters are all jumbled up, and much
simpler order emails that I receive from different eCommerce programs
have background color issues, don't display fieldset tags properly,
etc. I could give you a code sample if you like, but it really doesn't
seem to be related to any specific email at all.

Is no one else having this problem? Could it be that it's just my PC
(perhaps due to the fact that I beta-tested OL 2007)? I plan to get a
new PC in the next week or so anyway, so I could try reinstalling
everything from scratch then and see if that fixes it.

However, if this is an issue that others are also having with OL 2007,
then I may just go back to Office 2003...

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

Outlook 2007 has different (largely better) support for styles than earlier versions, but also blocks certain HTML elements and attributes, mainly those with security implications. It sounds like those newletter and ecommerce message publishers have not tested their output against the new version.

It's not like Microsoft has anything to hide regarding this issue. The documentation is far better than for any previous version and has been out there since August, and I and others with public platforms have been urging newsletter publishers to look at it:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/aa338201.aspx
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/aa338200.aspx

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

 

[michaelzap]

I didn't say that Microsoft had something to hide...? All I said was
that their product isn't working properly for me. So I'm trying to
figure out why...

Unfortunately I don't use any of the programs needed to use the
validation tool you linked to:

------
Download and install Word2007MailHTMLandCSS.exe if you work with:

Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007
Microsoft Expression Web Designer 2007
Microsoft Visual Studio 2005

Download and install Word2007MailHTMLandCSSMacromedia.exe if you work
with:

Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004
Macromedia Dreamweaver 8
------

A test email that I tried out in the W3C validators (XHTML and CSS)
does validate as XHTML Transitional, however. And all of the tags that
it uses are fully-supported in the OL 2007 list you sent. So what else
could be going on?

I guess I can track down a copy of Dreamweaver somewhere if
necessary...

 

[Patrick Schmid [MVP]]

Take a look at http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/10/05/56
I suggest especially to read the blog post linked in the update at the
bottom.

Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
--------------
http://pschmid.net
***
Office 2007 RTM Issues: http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/13/80
Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR):
http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/18/43
***
Customize Office 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
OneNote 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/onenote
***
Subscribe to my Office 2007 blog: http://pschmid.net/blog/feed

 

[michaelzap]

Ouch!

This pretty much sums up my experience as well:
http://joe.hardy.id.au/blog/2006/11/21/broken-html-rendering-in-outlook-2007/

So I've learned that a) I'm not crazy, and b) I should go back to
Office 2003 and try to convince everyone else I know to do the same.

Take a look athttp://pschmid.net/blog/2006/10/05/56
I suggest especially to read the blog post linked in the update at the
bottom.

Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
--------------http://pschmid.net
***
Office 2007 RTM Issues:http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/13/80
Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR):http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/18/43
***
Customize Office 2007:http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
OneNote 2007:http://pschmid.net/office2007/onenote
***
Subscribe to my Office 2007 blog:http://pschmid.net/blog/feed

I didn't say that Microsoft had something to hide...? All I said was
that their product isn't working properly for me. So I'm trying to
figure out why...

Unfortunately I don't use any of the programs needed to use the
validation tool you linked to:

Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007
Microsoft Expression Web Designer 2007
Microsoft Visual Studio 2005

Download and install Word2007MailHTMLandCSSMacromedia.exe if you work
with:

Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004
Macromedia Dreamweaver 8
------

A test email that I tried out in the W3C validators (XHTML and CSS)
does validate as XHTML Transitional, however. And all of the tags that
it uses are fully-supported in the OL 2007 list you sent. So what else
could be going on?

I guess I can track down a copy of Dreamweaver somewhere if
necessary...

 

[Patrick Schmid [MVP]]

Actually, c) is the better option: Educate people about 2007 and tell
them to get their newsletters in shape for it.
2007 is a fact that is going to happen (through OEM sales, corporate
deployments and retail sales) and newsletter authors really don't have a
choice whether they want to adjust their newsletters for it or not. If
they want to reach their entire audience, they have to.

Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
--------------
http://pschmid.net
***
Office 2007 RTM Issues: http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/13/80
Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR):
http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/18/43
***
Customize Office 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
OneNote 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/onenote
***
Subscribe to my Office 2007 blog: http://pschmid.net/blog/feed

Ouch!

This pretty much sums up my experience as well:
http://joe.hardy.id.au/blog/2006/11/21/broken-html-rendering-in-outlook-2007/

So I've learned that a) I'm not crazy, and b) I should go back to
Office 2003 and try to convince everyone else I know to do the same.

Take a look athttp://pschmid.net/blog/2006/10/05/56
I suggest especially to read the blog post linked in the update at the
bottom.

Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
--------------http://pschmid.net
***
Office 2007 RTM Issues:http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/13/80
Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR):http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/18/43
***
Customize Office 2007:http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
OneNote 2007:http://pschmid.net/office2007/onenote
***
Subscribe to my Office 2007 blog:http://pschmid.net/blog/feed

I didn't say that Microsoft had something to hide...? All I said was
that their product isn't working properly for me. So I'm trying to
figure out why...

Unfortunately I don't use any of the programs needed to use the
validation tool you linked to:

Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007
Microsoft Expression Web Designer 2007
Microsoft Visual Studio 2005

Download and install Word2007MailHTMLandCSSMacromedia.exe if you work
with:

Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004
Macromedia Dreamweaver 8
------

A test email that I tried out in the W3C validators (XHTML and CSS)
does validate as XHTML Transitional, however. And all of the tags that
it uses are fully-supported in the OL 2007 list you sent. So what else
could be going on?

I guess I can track down a copy of Dreamweaver somewhere if
necessary...

On Nov 28, 4:28 pm, "Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]"
Outlook 2007 has different (largely better) support for styles than earlier versions, but also blocks certain HTML elements and attributes, mainly those with security implications. It sounds like those newletter and ecommerce message publishers have not tested their output against the new version.

It's not like Microsoft has anything to hide regarding this issue. The documentation is far better than for any previous version and has been out there since August, and I and others with public platforms have been urging newsletter publishers to look at it:

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

Terrible means that the emails have missing background colors,
incorrect block sizes, and other major aesthetic disruptions that are
not present in other email clients or if I copy and paste to a text
file and view them in Internet Explorer.

Malformed means that the email had some inherent problem (bad code, or
code not well-designed to be sent via email) that might explain why OL
2007 doesn't display it as intended.

Most of the HTML email that I receive seems to have this issue to some
extent. For example, ZDNet newsletters are all jumbled up, and much
simpler order emails that I receive from different eCommerce programs
have background color issues, don't display fieldset tags properly,
etc. I could give you a code sample if you like, but it really doesn't
seem to be related to any specific email at all.

Is no one else having this problem? Could it be that it's just my PC
(perhaps due to the fact that I beta-tested OL 2007)? I plan to get a
new PC in the next week or so anyway, so I could try reinstalling
everything from scratch then and see if that fixes it.

However, if this is an issue that others are also having with OL 2007,
then I may just go back to Office 2003...- Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text -

 

[michaelzap]

Well, c) isn't mutually exclusive of b)...

As an end-user, I don't want an email client that breaks the email that
I receive. That's pretty basic. And given that I have a choice of
programs and that this is a very important factor for me, I'll choose
another one.

As a web designer, I'll have to take OL 2007 into account when
composing HTML email (as I did Netscape 4 back in the day). That
doesn't mean that I have to like it or just accept it. Maybe if there's
enough complaining from customers Microsoft will get its act together
and fix this major glitch in their software.

And realistically, Microsoft is the one who's going to have to change
sooner or later. There's no way that most designers are going to go
back to the dark ages of tables and font tags in order to make their
emails look relatively decent on OL 2007. I predict incremental
improvements in OL 2007's HTML rendering, and I expect that a lot of
designers will take a "just wait for them to fix it" approach rather
than learning how to dumb down their designs in just the right way.

As an example, I have a pretty basic HTML email that's sent to
customers when they place an order on one of our websites. It looks
terrible on OL 2007, but it's readable. Given that it looks great
everywhere else, I don't think I'm going to change it for now, and
we'll see if there's a rendering patch down the road that resolves it
for me.

And in the meantime, I'm going back to OL 2003 so that I can read my
mail the way it was meant to be viewed...

Actually, c) is the better option: Educate people about 2007 and tell
them to get their newsletters in shape for it.
2007 is a fact that is going to happen (through OEM sales, corporate
deployments and retail sales) and newsletter authors really don't have a
choice whether they want to adjust their newsletters for it or not. If
they want to reach their entire audience, they have to.

Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
--------------http://pschmid.net
***
Office 2007 RTM Issues:http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/13/80
Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR):http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/18/43
***
Customize Office 2007:http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
OneNote 2007:http://pschmid.net/office2007/onenote
***
Subscribe to my Office 2007 blog:http://pschmid.net/blog/feed

Ouch!

This pretty much sums up my experience as well:
http://joe.hardy.id.au/blog/2006/11/21/broken-html-rendering-in-outlo...

So I've learned that a) I'm not crazy, and b) I should go back to
Office 2003 and try to convince everyone else I know to do the same.

Take a look athttp://pschmid.net/blog/2006/10/05/56
I suggest especially to read the blog post linked in the update at the
bottom.
Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
--------------http://pschmid.net
***
Office 2007 RTM Issues:http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/13/80
Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR):http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/18/43
***
Customize Office 2007:http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
OneNote 2007:http://pschmid.net/office2007/onenote
***
Subscribe to my Office 2007 blog:http://pschmid.net/blog/feed
I didn't say that Microsoft had something to hide...? All I said was
that their product isn't working properly for me. So I'm trying to
figure out why...
Unfortunately I don't use any of the programs needed to use the
validation tool you linked to:
------
Download and install Word2007MailHTMLandCSS.exe if you work with:
Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007
Microsoft Expression Web Designer 2007
Microsoft Visual Studio 2005
Download and install Word2007MailHTMLandCSSMacromedia.exe if you work
with:
Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004
Macromedia Dreamweaver 8
------
A test email that I tried out in the W3C validators (XHTML and CSS)
does validate as XHTML Transitional, however. And all of the tags that
it uses are fully-supported in the OL 2007 list you sent. So what else
could be going on?
I guess I can track down a copy of Dreamweaver somewhere if
necessary...
On Nov 28, 4:28 pm, "Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]"
Outlook 2007 has different (largely better) support for styles than earlier versions, but also blocks certain HTML elements and attributes, mainly those with security implications. It sounds like those newletter and ecommerce message publishers have not tested their output against the new version.
It's not like Microsoft has anything to hide regarding this issue. The documentation is far better than for any previous version and has been out there since August, and I and others with public platforms have been urging newsletter publishers to look at it:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/aa338201.aspxhttp://msdn2.microsoft....
--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

Terrible means that the emails have missing background colors,
incorrect block sizes, and other major aesthetic disruptions that are
not present in other email clients or if I copy and paste to a text
file and view them in Internet Explorer.
Malformed means that the email had some inherent problem (bad code, or
code not well-designed to be sent via email) that might explain why OL
2007 doesn't display it as intended.
Most of the HTML email that I receive seems to have this issue to some
extent. For example, ZDNet newsletters are all jumbled up, and much
simpler order emails that I receive from different eCommerce programs
have background color issues, don't display fieldset tags properly,
etc. I could give you a code sample if you like, but it really doesn't
seem to be related to any specific email at all.
Is no one else having this problem? Could it be that it's just my PC
(perhaps due to the fact that I beta-tested OL 2007)? I plan to get a
new PC in the next week or so anyway, so I could try reinstalling
everything from scratch then and see if that fixes it.
However, if this is an issue that others are also having with OL 2007,
then I may just go back to Office 2003...- Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text -

 

[Patrick Schmid [MVP]]

True b) and c) aren't mutually exclusive.
Most HTML newsletters that I get seem to be up to 2007 already though.
There is only one newsletter that isn't, and that happens to be one from
my own university. I hope they'll listen to my complaints eventually...
I doubt that Microsoft will make incremental improvements. They will fix
bugs and performance issues with service packs, but adding new features
(as in improved HTML & CSS rendering) is something MS is avoiding doing,
even though they have done it a few times in the past. I'd say that
pinning your hope on MS doing anything in this for the next 2-3 years
(the time frame until the next Office release is probably going to hit
beta or the streets), isn't going to get you anywhere.
As a web designer, you simply have to consider when there are enough
copies of Outlook 2007 out there that you cannot afford avoiding it
anymore.
BTW, I wouldn't be surprised if the adjustment of your email for Outlook
2007 might be a small change. For example, are you using image widths
based on percentages?

Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
--------------
http://pschmid.net
***
Office 2007 RTM Issues: http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/13/80
Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR):
http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/18/43
***
Customize Office 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
OneNote 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/onenote
***
Subscribe to my Office 2007 blog: http://pschmid.net/blog/feed

Well, c) isn't mutually exclusive of b)...

As an end-user, I don't want an email client that breaks the email that
I receive. That's pretty basic. And given that I have a choice of
programs and that this is a very important factor for me, I'll choose
another one.

As a web designer, I'll have to take OL 2007 into account when
composing HTML email (as I did Netscape 4 back in the day). That
doesn't mean that I have to like it or just accept it. Maybe if there's
enough complaining from customers Microsoft will get its act together
and fix this major glitch in their software.

And realistically, Microsoft is the one who's going to have to change
sooner or later. There's no way that most designers are going to go
back to the dark ages of tables and font tags in order to make their
emails look relatively decent on OL 2007. I predict incremental
improvements in OL 2007's HTML rendering, and I expect that a lot of
designers will take a "just wait for them to fix it" approach rather
than learning how to dumb down their designs in just the right way.

As an example, I have a pretty basic HTML email that's sent to
customers when they place an order on one of our websites. It looks
terrible on OL 2007, but it's readable. Given that it looks great
everywhere else, I don't think I'm going to change it for now, and
we'll see if there's a rendering patch down the road that resolves it
for me.

And in the meantime, I'm going back to OL 2003 so that I can read my
mail the way it was meant to be viewed...

Actually, c) is the better option: Educate people about 2007 and tell
them to get their newsletters in shape for it.
2007 is a fact that is going to happen (through OEM sales, corporate
deployments and retail sales) and newsletter authors really don't have a
choice whether they want to adjust their newsletters for it or not. If
they want to reach their entire audience, they have to.

Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
--------------http://pschmid.net
***
Office 2007 RTM Issues:http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/13/80
Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR):http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/18/43
***
Customize Office 2007:http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
OneNote 2007:http://pschmid.net/office2007/onenote
***
Subscribe to my Office 2007 blog:http://pschmid.net/blog/feed

Ouch!

This pretty much sums up my experience as well:
http://joe.hardy.id.au/blog/2006/11/21/broken-html-rendering-in-outlo...

So I've learned that a) I'm not crazy, and b) I should go back to
Office 2003 and try to convince everyone else I know to do the same.

On Nov 28, 6:15 pm, "Patrick Schmid [MVP]" <[email protected]>
wrote:
Take a look athttp://pschmid.net/blog/2006/10/05/56
I suggest especially to read the blog post linked in the update at the
bottom.

Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
--------------http://pschmid.net
***
Office 2007 RTM Issues:http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/13/80
Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR):http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/18/43
***
Customize Office 2007:http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
OneNote 2007:http://pschmid.net/office2007/onenote
***
Subscribe to my Office 2007 blog:http://pschmid.net/blog/feed

"(e-mail address removed)" <[email protected]> wrote in messagenews:[email protected]:

I didn't say that Microsoft had something to hide...? All I said was
that their product isn't working properly for me. So I'm trying to
figure out why...

Unfortunately I don't use any of the programs needed to use the
validation tool you linked to:

Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007
Microsoft Expression Web Designer 2007
Microsoft Visual Studio 2005

Download and install Word2007MailHTMLandCSSMacromedia.exe if you work
with:

Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004
Macromedia Dreamweaver 8
------

A test email that I tried out in the W3C validators (XHTML and CSS)
does validate as XHTML Transitional, however. And all of the tags that
it uses are fully-supported in the OL 2007 list you sent. So what else
could be going on?

I guess I can track down a copy of Dreamweaver somewhere if
necessary...

On Nov 28, 4:28 pm, "Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]"
Outlook 2007 has different (largely better) support for styles than earlier versions, but also blocks certain HTML elements and attributes, mainly those with security implications. It sounds like those newletter and ecommerce message publishers have not tested their output against the new version.

It's not like Microsoft has anything to hide regarding this issue. The documentation is far better than for any previous version and has been out there since August, and I and others with public platforms have been urging newsletter publishers to look at it:

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

Terrible means that the emails have missing background colors,
incorrect block sizes, and other major aesthetic disruptions that are
not present in other email clients or if I copy and paste to a text
file and view them in Internet Explorer.

Malformed means that the email had some inherent problem (bad code, or
code not well-designed to be sent via email) that might explain why OL
2007 doesn't display it as intended.

Most of the HTML email that I receive seems to have this issue to some
extent. For example, ZDNet newsletters are all jumbled up, and much
simpler order emails that I receive from different eCommerce programs
have background color issues, don't display fieldset tags properly,
etc. I could give you a code sample if you like, but it really doesn't
seem to be related to any specific email at all.

Is no one else having this problem? Could it be that it's just my PC
(perhaps due to the fact that I beta-tested OL 2007)? I plan to get a
new PC in the next week or so anyway, so I could try reinstalling
everything from scratch then and see if that fixes it.

However, if this is an issue that others are also having with OL 2007,
then I may just go back to Office 2003...- Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text -

 

[michaelzap]

No percentage widths (it's all in px). But I am using background colors
on divs and fieldset tags with legends. Neither of these things work
well, and although I've laid it all out inside a table as well (so at
least the positioning will be roughly correct), it just doesn't look
right.

Most of the problems I've had in the HTML emails I compose myself have
been missing background colors and images. I'm not sure how I could get
around that other than not to use those (which is just surrendering to
the lowest common denominator). Any ideas?

And I'd say that at least 50% of the fancy HTML email that I receive
(as opposed to regular emails in HTML format) has some noticeable
formatting issue that seems to be OL 2007-related.

True b) and c) aren't mutually exclusive.
Most HTML newsletters that I get seem to be up to 2007 already though.
There is only one newsletter that isn't, and that happens to be one from
my own university. I hope they'll listen to my complaints eventually...
I doubt that Microsoft will make incremental improvements. They will fix
bugs and performance issues with service packs, but adding new features
(as in improved HTML & CSS rendering) is something MS is avoiding doing,
even though they have done it a few times in the past. I'd say that
pinning your hope on MS doing anything in this for the next 2-3 years
(the time frame until the next Office release is probably going to hit
beta or the streets), isn't going to get you anywhere.
As a web designer, you simply have to consider when there are enough
copies of Outlook 2007 out there that you cannot afford avoiding it
anymore.
BTW, I wouldn't be surprised if the adjustment of your email for Outlook
2007 might be a small change. For example, are you using image widths
based on percentages?

Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
--------------
http://pschmid.net
***
Office 2007 RTM Issues: http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/13/80
Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR):
http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/18/43
***
Customize Office 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
OneNote 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/onenote
***
Subscribe to my Office 2007 blog: http://pschmid.net/blog/feed

Well, c) isn't mutually exclusive of b)...

As an end-user, I don't want an email client that breaks the email that
I receive. That's pretty basic. And given that I have a choice of
programs and that this is a very important factor for me, I'll choose
another one.

As a web designer, I'll have to take OL 2007 into account when
composing HTML email (as I did Netscape 4 back in the day). That
doesn't mean that I have to like it or just accept it. Maybe if there's
enough complaining from customers Microsoft will get its act together
and fix this major glitch in their software.

And realistically, Microsoft is the one who's going to have to change
sooner or later. There's no way that most designers are going to go
back to the dark ages of tables and font tags in order to make their
emails look relatively decent on OL 2007. I predict incremental
improvements in OL 2007's HTML rendering, and I expect that a lot of
designers will take a "just wait for them to fix it" approach rather
than learning how to dumb down their designs in just the right way.

As an example, I have a pretty basic HTML email that's sent to
customers when they place an order on one of our websites. It looks
terrible on OL 2007, but it's readable. Given that it looks great
everywhere else, I don't think I'm going to change it for now, and
we'll see if there's a rendering patch down the road that resolves it
for me.

And in the meantime, I'm going back to OL 2003 so that I can read my
mail the way it was meant to be viewed...

Actually, c) is the better option: Educate people about 2007 and tell
them to get their newsletters in shape for it.
2007 is a fact that is going to happen (through OEM sales, corporate
deployments and retail sales) and newsletter authors really don't have a
choice whether they want to adjust their newsletters for it or not. If
they want to reach their entire audience, they have to.

Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
--------------http://pschmid.net
***
Office 2007 RTM Issues:http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/13/80
Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR):http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/18/43
***
Customize Office 2007:http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
OneNote 2007:http://pschmid.net/office2007/onenote
***
Subscribe to my Office 2007 blog:http://pschmid.net/blog/feed




Ouch!

This pretty much sums up my experience as well:
http://joe.hardy.id.au/blog/2006/11/21/broken-html-rendering-in-outlo...

So I've learned that a) I'm not crazy, and b) I should go back to
Office 2003 and try to convince everyone else I know to do the same.

On Nov 28, 6:15 pm, "Patrick Schmid [MVP]" <[email protected]>
wrote:
Take a look athttp://pschmid.net/blog/2006/10/05/56
I suggest especially to read the blog post linked in the update at the
bottom.

Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
--------------http://pschmid.net
***
Office 2007 RTM Issues:http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/13/80
Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR):http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/18/43
***
Customize Office 2007:http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
OneNote 2007:http://pschmid.net/office2007/onenote
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I didn't say that Microsoft had something to hide...? All I said was
that their product isn't working properly for me. So I'm trying to
figure out why...

Unfortunately I don't use any of the programs needed to use the
validation tool you linked to:

------
Download and install Word2007MailHTMLandCSS.exe if you work with:

Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007
Microsoft Expression Web Designer 2007
Microsoft Visual Studio 2005

Download and install Word2007MailHTMLandCSSMacromedia.exe if you work
with:

Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004
Macromedia Dreamweaver 8
------

A test email that I tried out in the W3C validators (XHTML and CSS)
does validate as XHTML Transitional, however. And all of the tags that
it uses are fully-supported in the OL 2007 list you sent. So what else
could be going on?

I guess I can track down a copy of Dreamweaver somewhere if
necessary...

On Nov 28, 4:28 pm, "Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]"
Outlook 2007 has different (largely better) support for styles than earlier versions, but also blocks certain HTML elements and attributes, mainly those with security implications. It sounds like those newletter and ecommerce message publishers have not tested their output against the new version.

It's not like Microsoft has anything to hide regarding this issue. The documentation is far better than for any previous version and has been out there since August, and I and others with public platforms have been urging newsletter publishers to look at it:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/aa338201.aspxhttp://msdn2.microsoft....

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers


Terrible means that the emails have missing background colors,
incorrect block sizes, and other major aesthetic disruptions that are
not present in other email clients or if I copy and paste to a text
file and view them in Internet Explorer.

Malformed means that the email had some inherent problem (bad code, or
code not well-designed to be sent via email) that might explain why OL
2007 doesn't display it as intended.

Most of the HTML email that I receive seems to have this issue to some
extent. For example, ZDNet newsletters are all jumbled up, and much
simpler order emails that I receive from different eCommerce programs
have background color issues, don't display fieldset tags properly,
etc. I could give you a code sample if you like, but it really doesn't
seem to be related to any specific email at all.

Is no one else having this problem? Could it be that it's just my PC
(perhaps due to the fact that I beta-tested OL 2007)? I plan to get a
new PC in the next week or so anyway, so I could try reinstalling
everything from scratch then and see if that fixes it.

However, if this is an issue that others are also having with OL 2007,
then I may just go back to Office 2003...- Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text -

 

[Patrick Schmid [MVP]]

Most of the problems I've had in the HTML emails I compose myself have

been missing background colors and images. I'm not sure how I could get
around that other than not to use those (which is just surrendering to
the lowest common denominator). Any ideas?

Read the MSDN documents Sue provided the links for (and are linked from
my blog post). They'll tell you what doesn't work.

And I'd say that at least 50% of the fancy HTML email that I receive
(as opposed to regular emails in HTML format) has some noticeable
formatting issue that seems to be OL 2007-related.

Let's hope that percentage does down soon...

Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
--------------
http://pschmid.net
***
Office 2007 RTM Issues: http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/13/80
Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR):
http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/18/43
***
Customize Office 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
OneNote 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/onenote
***
Subscribe to my Office 2007 blog: http://pschmid.net/blog/feed

True b) and c) aren't mutually exclusive.
Most HTML newsletters that I get seem to be up to 2007 already though.
There is only one newsletter that isn't, and that happens to be one from
my own university. I hope they'll listen to my complaints eventually...
I doubt that Microsoft will make incremental improvements. They will fix
bugs and performance issues with service packs, but adding new features
(as in improved HTML & CSS rendering) is something MS is avoiding doing,
even though they have done it a few times in the past. I'd say that
pinning your hope on MS doing anything in this for the next 2-3 years
(the time frame until the next Office release is probably going to hit
beta or the streets), isn't going to get you anywhere.
As a web designer, you simply have to consider when there are enough
copies of Outlook 2007 out there that you cannot afford avoiding it
anymore.
BTW, I wouldn't be surprised if the adjustment of your email for Outlook
2007 might be a small change. For example, are you using image widths
based on percentages?

Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
--------------
http://pschmid.net
***
Office 2007 RTM Issues: http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/13/80
Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR):
http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/18/43
***
Customize Office 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
OneNote 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/onenote
***
Subscribe to my Office 2007 blog: http://pschmid.net/blog/feed

Well, c) isn't mutually exclusive of b)...

As an end-user, I don't want an email client that breaks the email that
I receive. That's pretty basic. And given that I have a choice of
programs and that this is a very important factor for me, I'll choose
another one.

As a web designer, I'll have to take OL 2007 into account when
composing HTML email (as I did Netscape 4 back in the day). That
doesn't mean that I have to like it or just accept it. Maybe if there's
enough complaining from customers Microsoft will get its act together
and fix this major glitch in their software.

And realistically, Microsoft is the one who's going to have to change
sooner or later. There's no way that most designers are going to go
back to the dark ages of tables and font tags in order to make their
emails look relatively decent on OL 2007. I predict incremental
improvements in OL 2007's HTML rendering, and I expect that a lot of
designers will take a "just wait for them to fix it" approach rather
than learning how to dumb down their designs in just the right way.

As an example, I have a pretty basic HTML email that's sent to
customers when they place an order on one of our websites. It looks
terrible on OL 2007, but it's readable. Given that it looks great
everywhere else, I don't think I'm going to change it for now, and
we'll see if there's a rendering patch down the road that resolves it
for me.

And in the meantime, I'm going back to OL 2003 so that I can read my
mail the way it was meant to be viewed...


On Nov 28, 7:04 pm, "Patrick Schmid [MVP]" <[email protected]>
wrote:
Actually, c) is the better option: Educate people about 2007 and tell
them to get their newsletters in shape for it.
2007 is a fact that is going to happen (through OEM sales, corporate
deployments and retail sales) and newsletter authors really don't have a
choice whether they want to adjust their newsletters for it or not. If
they want to reach their entire audience, they have to.

Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
--------------http://pschmid.net
***
Office 2007 RTM Issues:http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/13/80
Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR):http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/18/43
***
Customize Office 2007:http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
OneNote 2007:http://pschmid.net/office2007/onenote
***
Subscribe to my Office 2007 blog:http://pschmid.net/blog/feed




Ouch!

This pretty much sums up my experience as well:
http://joe.hardy.id.au/blog/2006/11/21/broken-html-rendering-in-outlo...

So I've learned that a) I'm not crazy, and b) I should go back to
Office 2003 and try to convince everyone else I know to do the same.

On Nov 28, 6:15 pm, "Patrick Schmid [MVP]" <[email protected]>
wrote:
Take a look athttp://pschmid.net/blog/2006/10/05/56
I suggest especially to read the blog post linked in the update at the
bottom.

Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
--------------http://pschmid.net
***
Office 2007 RTM Issues:http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/13/80
Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR):http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/18/43
***
Customize Office 2007:http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
OneNote 2007:http://pschmid.net/office2007/onenote
***
Subscribe to my Office 2007 blog:http://pschmid.net/blog/feed


I didn't say that Microsoft had something to hide...? All I said was
that their product isn't working properly for me. So I'm trying to
figure out why...

Unfortunately I don't use any of the programs needed to use the
validation tool you linked to:

------
Download and install Word2007MailHTMLandCSS.exe if you work with:

Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007
Microsoft Expression Web Designer 2007
Microsoft Visual Studio 2005

Download and install Word2007MailHTMLandCSSMacromedia.exe if you work
with:

Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004
Macromedia Dreamweaver 8
------

A test email that I tried out in the W3C validators (XHTML and CSS)
does validate as XHTML Transitional, however. And all of the tags that
it uses are fully-supported in the OL 2007 list you sent. So what else
could be going on?

I guess I can track down a copy of Dreamweaver somewhere if
necessary...

On Nov 28, 4:28 pm, "Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]"
Outlook 2007 has different (largely better) support for styles than earlier versions, but also blocks certain HTML elements and attributes, mainly those with security implications. It sounds like those newletter and ecommerce message publishers have not tested their output against the new version.

It's not like Microsoft has anything to hide regarding this issue. The documentation is far better than for any previous version and has been out there since August, and I and others with public platforms have been urging newsletter publishers to look at it:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/aa338201.aspxhttp://msdn2.microsoft....

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers


Terrible means that the emails have missing background colors,
incorrect block sizes, and other major aesthetic disruptions that are
not present in other email clients or if I copy and paste to a text
file and view them in Internet Explorer.

Malformed means that the email had some inherent problem (bad code, or
code not well-designed to be sent via email) that might explain why OL
2007 doesn't display it as intended.

Most of the HTML email that I receive seems to have this issue to some
extent. For example, ZDNet newsletters are all jumbled up, and much
simpler order emails that I receive from different eCommerce programs
have background color issues, don't display fieldset tags properly,
etc. I could give you a code sample if you like, but it really doesn't
seem to be related to any specific email at all.

Is no one else having this problem? Could it be that it's just my PC
(perhaps due to the fact that I beta-tested OL 2007)? I plan to get a
new PC in the next week or so anyway, so I could try reinstalling
everything from scratch then and see if that fixes it.

However, if this is an issue that others are also having with OL 2007,
then I may just go back to Office 2003...- Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text -

 

[michaelzap]

Read the MSDN documents Sue provided the links for (and are linked from
my blog post). They'll tell you what doesn't work.

Actually those documents aren't all that helpful in my opinion. They
claim that OL 2007 has full support for every element that I've been
using, but that's just not so. Not displaying background colors for
divs is certainly not full support, and it's not something that I'm
willing to just forego because it doesn't work right in Outlook
anymore.

In all honesty, given the very serious limitations and errors in its
HTML rendering that you detail in your blog, can you really say that
designers should just learn to work within those limits?

I think that I'm not the only person who will complain about being
forced to send HTML emails as if they were made for Netscape 4, so
hopefully Microsoft will hear those complaints and respond to them by
fixing their product.

 

[Patrick Schmid [MVP]]

Actually those documents aren't all that helpful in my opinion. They

claim that OL 2007 has full support for every element that I've been
using, but that's just not so. Not displaying background colors for
divs is certainly not full support, and it's not something that I'm
willing to just forego because it doesn't work right in Outlook
anymore.

Actually, they say so under the following two headings (these two
sections are probably among the most interesting part of the first
document):
Unsupported Cascading Style Sheet Properties Compared with Cascading
Style Sheets, Level 1
Unsupported Cascading Style Sheet Properties Compared with Cascading
Style Sheets, Level 2.1
The list has:
background-attachment
background-image
background-position
background-repeat

In all honesty, given the very serious limitations and errors in its
HTML rendering that you detail in your blog, can you really say that
designers should just learn to work within those limits?

Yes, because this is simply how it is going to be. I don't like it, you
don't like it, but that also applies to taxes. That taxes are going to
go away is as likely as Microsoft improving the HTML capabilities before
the next release of Office, which is at least 2-3 years away. By then,
tens of millions of users will be using Outlook 2007. The question
designers need to ask is whether they care about those tens of millions
of users or not. And if they decide they care, they need to ask when to
start caring.

Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
--------------
http://pschmid.net
***
Office 2007 RTM Issues: http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/13/80
Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR):
http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/18/43
***
Customize Office 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
OneNote 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/onenote
***
Subscribe to my Office 2007 blog: http://pschmid.net/blog/feed

 

[michaelzap]

I don't think that you can compare the inevitability of taxes (which
have been around for as long as government, meaning hundreds of years)
with a very recent and very stupid step backwards by Microsoft in one
facet of its software. They patch things all the time, so why shouldn't
we insist that they patch this? It is, after all, a product bug and not
some imutable force of nature...

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

You should feel free to file an incident report with Microsoft Product Support. That's how "we insist" happens.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

 

[Patrick Schmid [MVP]]

It is by design. That doesn't make it a bug in Microsoft's eyes. Hence,
they won't fix it, because from their point of view, nothing is broken.

Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
--------------
http://pschmid.net
***
Office 2007 RTM Issues: http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/13/80
Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR):
http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/18/43
***
Customize Office 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
RibbonCustomizer Add-In: http://pschmid.net/office2007/ribboncustomizer
OneNote 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/onenote
***
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