HTML Email and Outlook 2007
by Castwide on 4-14-2008 • Tags: email, html, outlook • 0 commentsI just got another kick in the face from Microsoft. One of my current web projects involves sending HTML emails in response to form submissions. A simple enough feature to implement, especially since we're using PHP Mailer, which is already integrated into our framework. This afternoon, however, I got a call from one of my contacts, telling me that the automated email looks wrong in Outlook.
The email uses a layout that the client provided. It's a fairly complicated design with patterned backgrounds and rounded borders. I had tested it in Thunderbird and Outlook before passing it along for review. Unfortunately, I'm running Outlook 2000, which I haven't bothered to update because I never use it.
An article on SitePoint explains the likely cause of the problem: Microsoft has crippled its HTML support in Outlook 2007. Among the issues:
- no support for background images (HTML or CSS)
- no support for forms
- no support for Flash, or other plugins
- no support for CSS floats
- no support for replacing bullets with images in unordered lists
- no support for CSS positioning
- no support for animated GIFs
The sticking point in my project is the lack of support for background images, which are how I displayed the fancy borders and frames they built around their copy. Now I need to rewrite the HTML, half-blindly because I don't have a copy of Outlook to test it.
I just hope they don't start looking at it in Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, Lycos, Hotmail...