To undertake the rite of passage that is creating emails that still look great in Outlook it’s important for us to understand why Outlook can be such a thorn in our side.
One of the main issues with Outlook is its inconsistent rendering across different versions. Outlook CSS support isn’t great and here’s why…
The desktop versions of Outlook, especially those predating Outlook 2013, employ the Word rendering engine instead of a dedicated HTML rendering engine. This engine, originally designed for word processing, has limitations in commonly used in email design.
Although Outlook is no longer the powerhouse it was once in terms of email client market share, usurped in recent years by Apple/iOS Mail and Gmail. It still commands a healthy average 5%* of the market particularly in corporate environments. It’s still very important to make your emails look great on Outlook.
*This is just an average. Your email lists may vary, we always recommend checkino see who is opening your emails on which clients.
Could a new Outlook for Windows change things?
The introduction of ahas the potential to bring significant changes to the rendering challenges faced by email developers.
While specific details v Brazil Phone Number Data about the new version are not available, advancements in rendering technologies could alleviate some of the longstanding issues associated with Outlook’s rendering inconsistencies. With Microsoft themselves saying they want to “bring consistency across our Windows and web codebases”.
While many email developers may be salivating at the thought of a new and consistent version of Outlook, that version has only been the rollout to be a long and slow process so for now we’ll have to continue fighting the good fight against the older versions of Outlook.
11 ways Outlook can break HTML emails
Let’s explore best practices and strategies for optimizing HTML emails specifically for Outlook, enabling developers to overcome the challenges associated with it.
1. Outlook adds random white lines to emails
This is by far the Aero leads most notorious and problematic Outlook issue that exists. Nothing beats finishing up your beautiful, intricate email design, passing it through your and seeing a random white line in your Outlook test.