A Guide to CSS Support in Email
Since the rise of Internet Explorer, web designers have had to test their designs across multiple web browsers. No one likes it, but we've all copped it on the chin, written a few hacks and moved on with our lives. After all, 3 to 4 browsers aint that bad - and they finally seem to be getting their act together.
If Internet Explorer is the schoolyard bully making our web design lives a little harder, then Hotmail, Lotus Notes and Eudora are serial killers making our email design lives hell. Yes, it's really that bad.
Inspired by the fantastic work of Xavier Frenette, we decided to put each of the popular email environments to the test and finalize once and for all what CSS is and isn't supported out there.
Posted in: Tips & Resources
Comments for this entry are closed.
Browse the Blog
- Behind the Scenes (28)
- Interviews & Buzz (132)
- New Features & Updates (229)
- Observations & Answers (210)
- Release Notes (1)
- Tips & Resources (478)
Explore the Email Gallery
- All designs
- One column (368)
- Two column (221)
- Three column (33)
- Announcement (126)
- Newsletter (445)
- Invitation (37)
@herron_bird That’s totally awesome - thank you for checking out worldview! :D ^RH
Follow us on TwitterAbout • Our Book • Contact • API • Anti-spam Policy • Terms of Use • Privacy Policy
Proud founders of the Email Standards Project and supporters of the design community.
199 Comments
Apteka internetowa
July 5, 2007 9:44am
It’s very good article. Great site with very good look and perfect information… Thanks
Stock photos
July 13, 2007 11:12pm
Good stuff. I want to install it on my phone!
I love this phone i might buy me one in fort lauderdale
Aukcje
July 15, 2007 8:52pm
It’s very good article. Great site with very good look and perfect information. I like it too
Wzorki
July 16, 2007 8:35am
Very nice and well written guide. It’s very helpful to me, Thanks
Emlak
July 23, 2007 12:33pm
Nice job! A lot of thanks
Condor Fluge
July 23, 2007 9:14pm
CSS is also heplfull in protecting your e-mail address from spam. You can for example make him written from right to left and change his verwing in CSS. Not 100% but always it is some wall to spiders.
Vignesh
July 26, 2007 11:25pm
Hi! the article was very useful for our project. Great! Guys you have done a wonderful study.
Nithiyanandhan
August 7, 2007 10:01pm
Hey buddy’s
I am facing one problem.My html formatted e-mail is displaying properly in outlook express.But if i fwd that html formatted mail to some others the html format is collapsed and go to ordinary mail not a formatted mail.past 10 days i am facing this problem.So anybody could you help me.Urgent
indir
August 7, 2007 11:26pm
Thank you for the excellent, hard and detailed work - and particularly for sharing it!
Tomasz Gorski
August 13, 2007 12:47am
Excellent. This is confirmation that we are not insane. Great resource!
Gry
September 7, 2007 4:41am
Excellent piece. Explains a lot of things about email I have received that didn’t look correct! And may also explain some porr results on certain mails I have sent.
dzieci
September 8, 2007 12:59am
I don’t use css in emails because then they are more larger.
NBA
September 17, 2007 2:07pm
Excellent resource! Thanks for putting the time into simplifying this for us.
Katalog Stron
September 19, 2007 1:19am
E_X_C_E_L_L_E_N_T_-_A_R_T_I_C_L_E, thanks (*_*)
Dj Tiesto
September 19, 2007 10:55am
Allright…, now I only hope that somebody can tell me the HTML tags that PC E-mail clients can support in HTML e-mails.
gdr
September 19, 2007 8:28pm
Thanks for this useful post !
Linki
September 20, 2007 1:40am
Very nice and well written guide. It’s very helpful to me, Thanks
agire jiyan
September 22, 2007 9:02pm
Great site with very good look and perfect information.It’s very good article. Thanks
Katalog Stron
September 26, 2007 1:32am
Thanks for the info, i’m glad I finally found something usefull thx again!
Website
September 27, 2007 12:43am
Thank, this article is useful for me.
data
September 27, 2007 2:20pm
Great resource! Excellent. This is confirmation that we are not insane.
Viktor
September 28, 2007 4:22am
Thanks a lot, CSS is quite a pain in the a….
Michael
September 30, 2007 12:33am
Very nice and well written guide. It’s very helpful to me, Thanks
Evden Eve Nakliyat
October 5, 2007 1:02am
Michael - “Very nice and well written guide. It’s very helpful to me, Thanks”
Good job.
Tapeten
October 6, 2007 11:50pm
I think these blog is really useful for new comers and Excellent resource list.
It´s a very interesting Blog and simple answer of many questions.
Keep up the good work!
Thanks it helps me a lot…
sohbet
October 9, 2007 3:08pm
Very nice and well written guide
bentodesign
October 11, 2007 7:58am
interesting that google remains the least friendly web based email when it comes to using css.
Hanson So
October 12, 2007 3:28am
This is very helpful, and I find it an excellent resource. Thanks.
ross
October 13, 2007 10:28am
Thanks for taking the time to demystify the email minefield. Maybe someday we can stop pretending its 1990 when writing HTML emails.
diyet programları
October 14, 2007 5:04pm
Thats really great, david. Thanks for your fantastic work.
Gdynia
October 16, 2007 6:38am
Thanks for this very good article. Can i translate this and insert on my site in Poland? Thanks and Greetings from Gdynia
Pathfinder
October 17, 2007 7:02pm
Thanks for stuff.I was looking at the material over a large amount of time
pozycjonowanie
October 18, 2007 10:18pm
Good lord, what a fantastic time saver. Thank you for the excellent, hard and detailed work - and particularly for sharing it!
kanutouren
October 25, 2007 5:59am
This is very help ful , very nice and well written guide! Thanks! Good job. Thanks! Thanks!
resimler
October 29, 2007 4:55pm
Can u post some sample program about CSS
kora
October 30, 2007 7:06am
You’ll probably need to generalize a little here, because most of us have no idea what email environment each recipient is using.
Ana
October 31, 2007 4:15am
Very helpful!
However, have you ever tried testing iCalendar emails (ex. meeting request) with html body in Outlook. CSS support is minimal at best. The following are not supported for sure: background-color, border.
There are numerous others that I am not mentioning since I’m not done testing. :(
Colin Guthrie
November 1, 2007 10:27am
Hello,
Great report, very handy. One thing it does not mention however is what email clients support the embedding of multipart/related images in CSS url() containers. AFAIK none of the clients support this, but finding this information out is quite hard so adding this into this report would make it definitive!
Col
borelioza
November 3, 2007 3:00am
Thank you for the excellent, hard and detailed work - and particularly for sharing it! Good lord, what a fantastic time saver.
Stefan
November 3, 2007 8:21pm
Good review. I tried to design to another web email..and someones has no treatment of css…i design with older html without css
Informatico
November 5, 2007 6:40am
Great work, i was go crazy to make a template compatible with all clients and webmails.
Thanks a lot.
klimatyzatory
November 7, 2007 10:30am
This is very helpful.
nezh
November 8, 2007 3:23am
Good review. Thanks
nezh
November 8, 2007 3:24am
Nice post! Sending elegantly formatted emails is always a problem especially with people using all the email clients in the world.
John Handy
November 8, 2007 5:12am
I don´t think that using css in e-mails is a good idea. many people i know (including me) have activated text-only for e-mail and for that is css pretty useless but anyway a good article.
.Ogłoszenia
November 8, 2007 7:20am
Thanks for this side, now I know more. I’ll try to translate this article to my language and add it on my webside.Og≈Çoszenia
Firma
November 9, 2007 6:03am
Thank you for the excellent, hard and detailed work - and particularly for sharing it! Good lord, what a fantastic time saver.
game
November 10, 2007 4:35am
Thanks. I tried to design to another web email..and someones has no treatment of css.
telewizja n
November 11, 2007 12:16am
If you are sending HTML emails in your marketing campaigns (and there’s lots to support that you should) you have probably come across some serious design issues when it comes to using CSS styling. I ran across a very comprehensive article over at Campaign Monitor that outlines what CSS elements, selectors and properties are and are not supported by the various email client environments such as Outlook and Yahoo.
küvet
November 13, 2007 11:51pm
I have an HTML mail merge email going out with an invoice section i’d like printed on its own page.