HTML emails in Outlook 2007

[JK]

Am I the only person finding that Outlook 2007 is painfully slow (and CPU-
intensive) in rendering incoming HTML emails? Outlook 2003 was fine in this
regard.

I managed to solve most of the speed problems with the 2007 version by
following guidance notes in this and other forums, but incoming HTML emails
remain a big problem. I am using the recent Outlook 2007 patch issued by MS
for large PSTs (mine is less than 500MB).

HTML emails take forever to appear (whether in the reading pane or when
“opened”). And bizarrely, some HTML newsletters that rendered perfectly in
Outlook 2003 are badly broken in Outlook 2007. Some HTML emails lock
Outlook 2007 at 100% CPU usage.

I did read elsewhere that Outlook 2007 dropped the IE HTML engine in favour
of the Word HTML engine, which has many developers tearing their hair out.
Could this be a cause? Whatever it is, it makes Outlook 2007 close to
unusable for me. Why would MS break something that works?

JohnK

 

[Dr Teeth]

I assume that this (which I also experience) is linked to the age it
takes for Outlook 2007 to display a link. See my post in 'Outlook 2007
still very sluggish even with performance patch'.

Scrolling the HTML page 'tears' it if done too quickly (which ain't
that fast).

Cheers,

Guy

** Stress - the condition brought about by having to
** resist the temptation to beat the living daylights
** out of someone who richly deserves it.

 

[JK]

I assume that this (which I also experience) is linked to the age it
takes for Outlook 2007 to display a link. See my post in 'Outlook 2007
still very sluggish even with performance patch'.

Scrolling the HTML page 'tears' it if done too quickly (which ain't
that fast).

Is the extreme slowness rendering HTML emails generally accepted as a
problem with Outlook 2007? It's driving me nuts.

Some regular HTML newsletters I have been receiving for years either appear
garbled, or use 100 per cent CPU until I stop reading the email, or in a
couple of cases, the email freezes Outlook 2007 entirely. None of the
emails caused a problem in Outlook 2003 (in fact I found Outlook 2003 to be
pretty much problem-free).

As I'm beginning to give up on this, may I also ask for some guidance on
downgrading to Outlook 2003? I want to leave the rest of my Office 2007
installation intact, but use Outlook 2003. Is there a decent online guide
for that?

 

[Brian Tillman]

Is the extreme slowness rendering HTML emails generally accepted as a
problem with Outlook 2007? It's driving me nuts.

Some regular HTML newsletters I have been receiving for years either
appear garbled, or use 100 per cent CPU until I stop reading the
email, or in a couple of cases, the email freezes Outlook 2007
entirely. None of the emails caused a problem in Outlook 2003 (in
fact I found Outlook 2003 to be pretty much problem-free).

OL 2003 used IE to render HTML. OL 2007 uses Word, and a cut-down Word at
that. The differences in handling HTML are outlined in the Microsoft
Knowledgebase.

As I'm beginning to give up on this, may I also ask for some guidance
on downgrading to Outlook 2003? I want to leave the rest of my Office
2007 installation intact, but use Outlook 2003. Is there a decent
online guide for that?

If you do that, you don't be able to use Word as your mail editor and you
won't be able to perform mail merges. I think you have to uninstall
everything, install OL 2003, then the rest of Office 2007 (i.e., install the
older version first).

 

[JK]

OL 2003 used IE to render HTML. OL 2007 uses Word, and a cut-down
Word at that. The differences in handling HTML are outlined in the
Microsoft Knowledgebase.

Many thanks for the response, Brian. I was aware of the switch to the
Word HTML engine. What I cannot understand is why there is not a
widespread mutiny among Outlook users about this change. The Word HTML
engine is so limited that, unless the HTML is very basic, the email will
not render properly.

The issue was apparently raised by developers in the beta phase, but it
appears their views were ignored, and now coders are trying to deal with
the consequences:
http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2007/01/10/microsoft-breaks-html-email-
rendering-in-outlook/

I'll just give one example of what the Word HTML engine does to one email
newsletter I receive every day:
http://www.newsparadise.com/outlook/outlook.htm

I can't imagine what possessed the Outlook team to do this. The only
possible reason to change from the IE engine would be security. And if
they believed their own PR about IE7, that shouldn't be a reason....

I am furious about this. I guess I'm just mystified that this newsgroup
isn't dominated by this issue...

 

[Mickey A]

Just found this thread while looking for a solution to this very problem.
Other than the HTML rendering or lack there of, I like Outlook2007. I will
probably live with this as I have my news going through Windows Mail(Vista)
due to lack of NewsReader in Outlook(hope I am not missing something). I
will will just have to read my problematic HTML email through this
client...which works fine. I just lose my Exchange functionality which is
why I won't use this exclusively.

Bummer...but thanks for the posts.

--Mickey