Outlook 2010 and HTML Email
For those of you who build HTML emails for your clients on a regular basis, I am sure you are aware of the grass-roots effort over at fixoutlook.org to influence Outlook 2010. For those who don’t know, Microsoft introduced a change when they launched Outlook 2007 to the way emails were rendered. As of Outlook 2007, Outlook opens the HTML Email and converts it to Microsoft Word format before displaying it to the user. What happens during this process is that many CSS attributes and HTML support is completely removed. Some of the most notable absences are background-image, and padding and margin support. A more detailed look at its deficiencies is available.
Through testing an early beta of Outlook 2010, the folks over at Campaign Monitor discovered that Outlook 2010 continued to render email the same way as Outlook 2007. This prompted them to launch fixoutlook.org so Microsoft could hear the voice of developers and users around the world who say “Enough is Enough!” Less than a full day after the site launched, Microsoft issued a release on their Outlook blog.
Microsoft’s response was largely smoke and mirrors and they went as far as to claim security as a benefit for using Word to render emails (A feature they say isn’t available in browsers). I am sorry to say, Microsoft, that pretty much every browser out there lets you turn off Javascript now if you really want to… so the fact that Word can’t process Javascript is not a security feature.
I was able to reach David Greiner, co-founder of Campaign Monitor, last night for a statement. We had a great call and he was extremely gracious concerning Microsoft’s response. He mentioned that Microsoft is the biggest software company in the world with the biggest product in the world… we have to be understanding of what they are working with. He also mentioned that he has personally dialoged with some of the Outlook team and said they are a great group of people. His reasoning on Outlook’s deficiencies was simple: “HTML Email, whether you like it or hate it, is not going anywhere. Its broken, so why not fix it.”
David did express that he was slightly hurt by Microsoft’s response but he gathered hope from their claim to support email standards should a true standard emerge. Toward the end of the call David also mentioned that since a standard for HTML already exists, email clients should just support the existing standard… it is HTML Email after all!
For more information, I encourage you to visit the following sites:
- FixOutlook.org – The site that started it all
- Microsoft’s Response
- Jeffery Zeldman’s Response
- Campaign Monitor’s Response
- Email Standard Project
Be sure to subscribe the feed over at the Email Standards Project for the latest in email news.
Feedback! Be sure to leave comments on this post! I want to hear your thoughts on the subject. Is Microsoft right or wrong? Is FixOutlook.org worth getting involved with?
Disclaimer: I am a current customer of Campaign Monitor… and I happen to respect the team over there quite a bit.
Doug Neiner is an Editor at Fuel Your Coding and is president of Pixel Graphic Design Studio. He is addicted to new technology, and specifically loves spending time with WordPress, Ruby on Rails and jQuery. Learn more via twitter or his Google Profile.
Grab the Feed
One of my favorite quotes by a Microsoft employee is from one of their reps that spoke at a conference in NYC last year – he said (verbatim): “So, I know a lot of you don’t like us. We know we suck… but we’re trying to get better.” Are they?
It’s hard to say. Ultimately, there is no short-term solution – at least, not a feasible one. Microsoft will continue to treat its products and the market the same way it always has: by relying on the masses of its technically-unsavvy end users to support whatever “Microsoft standard” it feels it should be enforcing. To be fair, none of this really matters for most of their products.
They’re really not the only evil, though: every major browser rendering engine has a different interpretation (however minor or major) of standards. In any case, I think that FixOutlook.org is really just a glimpse at a much larger, more abstract issue. I don’t particularly think that Microsoft will respect the view of a small developer audience (compared to its end users in general) unless they start catching major heat (eg more than angry bloggers and small organizations), but I do think it’s worth voicing, especially if it helps you sleep at night.
One of the most embarrassing moves from Microsoft this year. Plenty more to follow!
I can understand the fact that Microsoft is the largest software company in the world and that they have to make changes more gradual than other small companies, but what I don’t sympathize with is their continued support and development of products (and standards) that are less than stellar. (I use that term loosely.)
I think it’s easy to associate any/all Microsoft employees with the company itself, thereby assuming they’re all bent on the destruction of good design and development. But I think it’s safe to say that there are some good people there that want to make a difference. I haven’t met any of them personally, but from the post above it looks like David Greiner has talked with a few.
In my personal opinion, I would’ve liked to seen the FixOutlook.org site really make a difference in Microsoft’s stance. It’s just downright ugly to see MS Word as an HTML rendering system. *UGH* And to think that they better supported CSS 9-10 years ago is a huge laugh. I’m not sure what they were thinking on that one. So my final answer, yes, Microsoft is wrong for still planning to use MS Word for HTML emails. Period.
My favorite part was that Microsoft’s own marketing campaigns are thwarted due to their own crappy product. The post below says it all.
“Tim Dawson said:
“[click here to] Read this issue online if you can’t see the images or are using Outlook 2007.”
- Quoted from the official Microsoft Xbox newsletter.
Even your companies own marketing teams cant send out appealing newsletters using the tools you are providing. “