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Microsoft takes email design back 5 years

January 12, 2007

As I type this post I still can't believe it. I'm literally stunned. If you haven't already heard, I'm talking about the recent news that Outlook 2007, released next month, will stop using Internet Explorer to render HTML emails and instead use the crippled Microsoft Word rendering engine.

Now c'mon, how bad can this be?

First things first, you need to realize that Outlook enjoys a 75-80% share of the corporate email market, which is similar to Internet Explorer's share of the browser market - they make the rules. We've been doing some early testing, as have a few other brave souls, and come February, here's just a taste of what won't be supported:

No background images - Background images in divs and table cells are gone, meaning Mark's image replacement technique is out the window.
Poor background color support - Give a div or table cell a background color, add some text to it and the background color displays fine. Nest another table or div inside though and the background color vanishes.
No support for float or position - Completely breaking any CSS based layouts right from the word go. Tables only.
Shocking box model support - Very poor support for padding and margin, and you thought IE5 was bad!

Microsoft have released a full run down of what is and isn't supported, including a downloadable validator that helps you validate your HTML for their engine. Word of warning though, it only works with Microsoft software and Dreamweaver.

To give you a quick example of just how far backwards we've gone, here's a screenshot of the Campaign Monitor newsletter (which uses CSS for layout) in Outlook 2000 and 2007. Yes folks, that's seven long years difference.

Outlook 2000

Outlook 2007

This really is a game changer. Previously you could send a HTML email in the comfort that the majority of your recipients would have very good CSS support. Other email clients were also catching up. Thunderbird uses the Firefox rendering engine, the new Yahoo! Mail beta has great CSS support. Things were looking good for us CSS based email designers.

Unfortunately, that all goes down the toilet now. If your email breaks in Notes or Eudora, it was often an acceptable casualty, but if it breaks in Outlook, you're more than likely ostracizing too many recipients to justify your design approach. This certainly doesn't spell the end for HTML email, it just takes us back 5 years where tables and nasty inline CSS was the norm.

Imagine for a second that the new version of IE7 killed off the majority of CSS support and only allowed table based layouts. The web design world would be up in arms! Well, that's exactly what the new version of Outlook does to email designers.

What's the reasoning behind this?

After picking up the contents of my desk off the floor and taking a few deep breaths, I tried to come up with a few decent reasons why Microsoft would go in this direction. Here's what I came up with.

Security - But wait! Microsoft have touted Internet Explorer as "a major step forward in security". Surely they'd just replace the IE6 rendering engine with IE7 and be done with it. I'd also love to know how float and position impacts the security of an email in any way.
Consistent rendering - By default Outlook uses the Word engine to create HTML emails, which it's done for years now. Perhaps Microsoft figured that in order to keep the look and feel of emails consistent between Outlook users they'd display emails using the same engine that created them. But what about the millions of other email newsletters out there that aren't created with Outlook or Word? If an email is created with Outlook, then surely it should display perfectly in a modern browser like IE7.
They hate us - OK, this one might be pushing it, but I'm running out of explanations here. Don't get me wrong, we're not Microsoft bashers here. Both our products are developed on Microsoft's .NET platform and we've been a fan of their development environment for the better part of a decade. But seriously, they've taken 5 important years off the email design community in one fell swoop.

At least they've still got Hotmail, right?

Well, no. We've been doing plenty of testing with the new version of Hotmail (Windows Live Mail) for an upcoming article and it turns out that like Outlook 2007, Live Mail is actually a step backwards for us email designers. At least Hotmail ignored all CSS (except for inline CSS) and you could force it to roll back to a nicely formatted rich text email.

Instead, Windows Live Mail displays some CSS but, you guessed it, limited support for floats and no positioning. It's looking like table based layouts all round at Microsoft for the next few years at least.

Where to from here?

We've been spending the better part of the last 2 years encouraging designers to embrace accessible and standards compliant email design, but frustratingly that position may no longer hold much weight. Just yesterday, Jonathan Nicol said:

None of these limitations is going to make the task of designing HTML emails impossible, but they will ensure that no advances are made in this field for a good number of years. Remember, it's been four years since the last version of Outlook was released, so I‚'m going to guess it'll be at least six years before Outlook 2007 drops off the edge of the map.

Sadly, I couldn't agree more. While this is certainly a big blow, the reality is that many of us are going to have to scale back our email templates to years past and stick with tables and inline CSS if we want consistent looking emails in Outlook and Windows Live Mail. For a quick example, our sample email templates use a table based layout combined with some simple CSS.

Template changes aside, I don't see why we have to take it lying down. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this news. Perhaps if we get together as a community and explain to Microsoft how damaging this change really is, we can encourage some real change, or at the very least get the discussion started.

What say you, email designers?

Update 1: Welcome Digg users. With the anti-HTML email comments rolling in, I just want to clarify one thing here. This has nothing to do with the text/HTML email debate and won't stop people sending HTML email. All it means is that a lot of HTML emails in Outlook will be garbled and difficult to read. Nothing more, nothing less. Thanks also to those posting constructive comments. It seems this situation might have plenty to do with Microsoft having to separate the browser from the OS for anti-trust reasons.

Update 2: We've just posted a follow up article that explains Microsoft's reasoning behind this change and exactly what we can do about it if we want it changed.

Update 3: The time for complaining about this change or debating HTML vs plain text has passed. Read why we need to look forward and start doing our own part to improve standards support in HTML email.

Posted in: Tips & Resources

516 Comments

Justin
January 13, 2007 4:22am

Is it possible that Word 2007’s rendering engine has been updated to support things like CSS… haven’t heard anything about it but doesnt this seem possible?
Android
January 13, 2007 4:26am

...just stop using Outlook
Josh Williams
January 13, 2007 4:26am

This is un-freaking-believable. Wow. And just like that we’re all screwed.
Justin - Too funny!
January 13, 2007 4:27am

Too funny… Justin, your comment was not posted as I was typing mine, hope people realize we are two different people.
Lenny
January 13, 2007 4:28am

Lets all all just get thunder bird and forget about microsoft.
Rob
January 13, 2007 4:29am

You forget one important thing: you opinion is meaningless. MS has made their decision, and that’s it. Serial monopolists are likely to come out with gems like this.
Jim
January 13, 2007 4:34am

I suppose we can thank all the idiots that don’t want windows to ship with IE for this.
kitsimons
January 13, 2007 4:40am

Looks like it’ll be a decent year for Thunderbird take-up then…
chris furniss
January 13, 2007 4:43am

I agree that Emails are supposed to be quick and simple text, and that HTML email really really sucks. Unfortunately, clients LOVE html email and most of the time it is very hard to convince them that their emails should look different than a landing page. In fact, I bet most “regular” users think that there is no difference between email and the internet. They couldn’t care less, they just want something pretty.

When I make HTML emails (usually under protest) I always code them for the lowest common denomenator. Tables and inline CSS. Cause we have idiots like the people at Microsoft always doing things like this to crap everything up.
aeb
January 13, 2007 4:43am

I like html emails only when the amount of html is limited - some font colors, some information structured in a table, etc.

I for one welcome this change.
gb
January 13, 2007 4:44am

Yet another reason I can laugh at those who laugh at me when I say I still do primarily table layouts. While I see the power of CSS, I don’t see how anyone can say it is the new “standard.” When finally becomes a legit standard, great, I’ll switch.
JB
January 13, 2007 4:45am

Who are all these cavemen craving text email? Don’t you have Geico commercials to be in?
[kbox]
January 13, 2007 4:47am

Demon there is nothing wrong with HTML email.

But if the problem was with HTML email then why use an antiquated rendering engine to render that HTML in a poor way?

Just use linux people!
John Marstall
January 13, 2007 4:48am

HTML email isn’t just for spam and marketing campaigns. Try organizing tabular data in ASCII, or soliciting responses to be fed to an automated system (think Netflix).

And even if you thing HTML email should go, the answer is not to replace the HTML renderer with one years out-of-date. The answer would be to remove support for HTML entirely.

Mind-boggling.
Robert D
January 13, 2007 4:51am

Not that this has not already been stated but, personally I force all email recieved via outllok to be formatted as plain text. However I think the option should be there for folks to recieve html formatted messages in all of there glory. At work if I had my way I would force enterprise wide text only emails.

HTML is made for a browser not my inbox but that is just my 2 cents.
Me
January 13, 2007 4:51am

Buy a Mac and you won’t have this problem!
Chris
January 13, 2007 5:00am

Dear Microsoft,

You will get more flies with honey than you will with vinegar.
mb
January 13, 2007 5:01am

So how many of you actually use Outlook at home? And if you do… why? Outlook is packaged as a corporate client… and as a corporate customer, we don’t allow HTML mail. So what is the problem? If you MS haters actually looked around, and maybe attended a free office presentation (yes MS has office software launches and other presentations for free), you may actually see that 95% of the user base WANTED it this way. So stop crying, use your open source app or whatever you want. You can CHOOSE not to use the software. And yes, there are other packages out there so none of that shit argument either!
Sean
January 13, 2007 5:02am

Saying emails should be only text is like saying emails should not be used for marketing purposes. Like that’s going to happen.
Romeyn
January 13, 2007 5:04am

Yay! E-mail is for TEXT.

You want to make a web page? Make a web page and post it to a WEB SERVER and E-mail the link.
Nick
January 13, 2007 5:11am

If you don’t like something in an open source software, you (or a programmer you hire) can change it to your liking. You can’t do that with proprietary software. If this was to happen in Thunderbird, there would be a fork with a fix available within a day. This is why I choose Free software (that’s Free as in Freedom).
Kendra
January 13, 2007 5:13am

I’m completely discouraged because I just started putting together html e-mails and now I have to be cautious about this?! Microsoft is a joke let’s all switch to Macs!
Tom
January 13, 2007 5:14am

HTML > /dev/null
Ray
January 13, 2007 5:14am

Folks it is simple stop using Microsoft and switch to Linux ,, Microsoft has been telling you all how to do your work for years it is time to shut them down once and for all and get rid of there crap OS’s and programs

we use Firefax here and have noe problems
mav
January 13, 2007 5:16am

Word has a crapload of exploits available for it too.

I figure this is all about making it easier for people to take Word documents and turn them into emails. It increases Office lock-in.

And as far as everyone who has suggested changing e-mail clients, well, that’s not really possible in an enterprise environment - most large companies are locked into the Exchange/Outlook combination and would require something as good or better to come along before they would ever consider migrating. (Believe me, the number of network admins that dream about this happening is not small, but so far nobody else has released anything that really competes with the functionality of Outlook + Exchange.)

Me, I can only hope this decreases the number of people sending crappy HTML emails, because I am utterly sick of Outlook locking up and taking 30-40 seconds to load all the associated crap from the Exchange server for a message I’m just going to delete anyway.
someone
January 13, 2007 5:16am

Why not give it up and go back to good old basic text only messages. They don’t waste server space with images & all the html code, you don’t have to worry about the rendering, plus it definitely removes the IE security problems.
Larry
January 13, 2007 5:17am

I agree with the text based email only. If I want to see pretty pictures and layouts, I can load up Firefox. It’s called including a “hires” link inside of your email people. I hate getting 30 emails a day that are HTML and image ridden, and don’t even display correctly. I don’t use Outlook, I use Thunderbird.

Microsoft has always been retarded when it comes to things like this.

Maybe this is where Thunderbird overthrows Outlook for non-work users?
John
January 13, 2007 5:24am

The EU has told MS they should not bundle technologies, and MS has been fined hundreds of millions of dollars for non compliance. So if HTML e-mail is of value to the recipient (and based on this discussion, that’s debateable) then the door is open for competitors. At this point, the trend of this discussion seems to be that while this decision an affront to those who professionally design HTML e-mail for others, it is viewed as somewhat positive by those who simply consume e-mail.

I think there has been an opportunity for a while to develop forms technologies using HTML e-mail, that has been ignored in favor of proprietary technologies such as Acrobat. It’s a pity that there was not more widespread respect for the platform, rather than it becoming a launchpad and primary vector for unwanted spam.
M$ Hater
January 13, 2007 5:29am

And I thought Linux would bring M$‘s demise. I think Ballmer & Co. have the task well in hand.

Don’t have to worry about an iceberg, the ship already has a hole.
Torgie
January 13, 2007 5:29am

“I think this is a great move. I’m sick and tired of html email and hopefully this will reduce the number of people that think its cool to put html, background images, and all that other crap in an email.”

Wow, I can smell the viral marketting from here. I have been researching this topic, maybe a half-dozen of these blogs, and right around Jan. 13, 6am, the comments sections get inundated with the same rhetoric : “Email is for text, if you want to get all creative, use webpages!”

Honestly? Really? I swear I’ve seen exact copies and pastes from one blog to the other as I read up on this issue. “Viral Marketting” - it’s sick.
Michael Young
January 13, 2007 5:30am

Poor decision? Absolutely. I’d much rather they strip out html altogether and revert all email to plaintext (html email is the debbil), but this middle ground hack job just annoys me, as does incompetence in general.
whiny
January 13, 2007 5:32am

awww everyone keep whining about how much they hate MS. Guess what people, they are not stupid I’m sure something will come about to fix this… Hasn’t anyone learned that yet?
Simple Solution
January 13, 2007 5:33am

Render your whole layout and content as a .jpg Heh heh.
Captain Obvious
January 13, 2007 5:33am

Those who use Microsoft products deserve the lousy performance, security and heinous lock-in that they deserve.

In my view, only the abysmally clueless use Outlook in any incarnation.

If your corporate standard demands it, let the IT department pay the toll in man-hours and hair pulling. It’s overhead, and Microsoft is making you pay it. If the PHBs specify such a terrible platform, they should be made to bear the brunt of the cost in dollars and pain.

Funny, I don’t have these problems on OS X and Linux. What is it that I know, which you don’t?
marc
January 13, 2007 5:33am

@torgie: first, i don’t think you understand what viral marketing is.

Second, have you considered that this might be a digg/etc. effect? E.g., I was linked to this page from digg and left my HTML-mail hatred comment. If this site links to any other blogs discussing the same thing I would probably also chime in there about my profound hatred for HTML mail.

I imagine that there are two communities commenting here. One is the designer community that reads these blogs on a general basis, and probably is concerned about the negative effects on their design efforts. The other community has been brought here from Digg/etc. and is mostly techy-type people who hate HTML mail.
A different Tom
January 13, 2007 5:36am

Weirdly enough, the only HTML email that I look forward to is my monthly here’s-some-news-and-cool-links from MSDN.
Tom
January 13, 2007 5:36am

P.S.: Sounds to me like the first real improvement in Outlook ever!!!
Mal
January 13, 2007 5:39am

Seems like a good thing to me. I dislike HTML email profusely and forcing spammers / marketers to start producing ‘lite’ HTML newsletters is a step in the right direction - they’ll have to change if they have any common sense.

Emails should be text only, if you want send extra stuff then either link to a website or add it as an attachment.
Michael
January 13, 2007 5:41am

PS. I’m not a part of some pervasive anti-html email conspiracy, nor involved in any way with a group performing viral marketing to achieve such goals.

;)
Brian
January 13, 2007 5:43am

This is the best news I’ve heard from MS in a long time. Using IE in any form has always been a major security hole. The fact that a user had to use it, just to use Outlook, only made that worse. This is a great step forward, and also neccessary for their anti-trust issues.

Why do you assume that someone should have to have IE installed to view your ads? Personally I don’t want “webpages” in my inbox. Send me a nicely formatted LETTER, fine, but if you want me to see a CSS formatted webpage… include a link. Corporately I user Opera and Firefox, as well as Outlook. I love the fact that now IE won’t be sneaking in through Outlook.
Gene
January 13, 2007 5:45am

It’s funny that there’s so many HTML email haters that read & respond on a blog about HTML email… I bet you bash it here but take money to build them don’t you…

As for M$, this is a lame move, just like every lame move they’ve made the past 10 years. They can only copy other innovations and days of them innovating are long gone. What do you expect?

I’ve always said that you should design your HTML emails as old school as possible, I know tables & in-line styles suck, but you almost have to use those techniques all the time now anyways, so your cover the bases, don’t you?
Mav7469
January 13, 2007 5:47am

You know that there is a version called Outlook 2003, right??? All of your information is from a blogger. How can you be so stupid. I suppose you believe that the licensing in Microsoft Vista can not be transfered to another computer as well. You are an idiot. The reason that the rendering is now done in Word 2007 and not Internet Explorer is because it is required by LAW. That is right. This is what you get from the DOJ going after Microsoft as a monopoly. Microsoft Outlook can no longer assume that Internet Explorer is even loaded on a machine. That is number one.
Number two is that Microsoft has upgraded the HTML and CSS rendering to Microsoft word to “mimic” Internet Explorer. This way, Microsoft Office can be considered a “separate and different stand alone” product.
Maybe you should do a little more homework if you want to be considered a journalist instead of a one-sided blogger.
mk
January 13, 2007 5:47am

just curious, i keep seeing all these ‘email is just for text’ messages but ummm where is that written? At one time all a web page contained was some text and maybe a .gif image or two. Were you upset when more graphics and formatting were added to webpages also?
BrettFromTibet
January 13, 2007 5:49am

To hell with Microsoft! As a web developer who cries in trying to make things
work in IE… I say they are the worst software company in the history of the world.

They day they file for bankruptcy I will joyfully celebrate.

JUST SAY NO to WORD / IE / Outlook / Windows!

Only the designers / developers have the power to stop this.

NO MORE IE / Outlook hacks!
John Gladden
January 13, 2007 5:55am

Blame the right people here.

The SPAMMERS, NUKERS, and SCRIPT KIDDIES that constantly assault people’s inboxes.

It’s so easy to bash Microsoft and call for their demise. Might as well down all the power stations in the world too, because of their “negative environmental impact”.

Use your head. If you’re bored enough to have to point a finger at someone and blame them for all your problems, at least have the common sense to make sure you’re pointing at the right person.
Ernie Oporto
January 13, 2007 5:58am

Don’t care. Don’t use Outlook.
mshater
January 13, 2007 5:59am

Microsoft? Do something stupid? That’s unpossible..
Webjedi
January 13, 2007 5:59am

I have used Outlook 2007 for a few months and noticed nothing strange in my emails. And I must say I support the “no background image in table” as that’s the way all my spam images arrive now adays. I guess if I was an “email” designer I’d be upset by any limitation set on me - but as an end user I’ve noticed no issues.
Jordan
January 13, 2007 6:00am

It’s just another Microsoft Suicide Note (MSN). If they wish to continue doing this, people will stop using their products. They aren’t complying with establish standards, and that will lead to the adoption of other products to fill the gaps they’ve created for themselves.
senIxon
January 13, 2007 6:13am

Try Downloading Images, click the text at the top… “Click here to download. To help protect your privacy… “

Still looks odd?

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