HTML Email in Microsoft Outlook 2007

Ring in the Changes

There is a major change in the way that HTML email will be displayed with the introduction of Microsoft Office Outlook 2007.

In the interests of security, Outlook 2007 will use the HTML rendering features of Word 2007 instead of that delivered with Internet Explorer 7.
So What?

Basically, unless your HTML emails are extremely simple, you will experience display problems with Outlook 2007.

In most cases the only solution will be to minimise the complexity of your HTML email to accommodate the minimal support for the latest generation of HTML.

HTML Email Programs

Many programs are available to produce fancy HTML based emails and now many of them will no longer produce viable content for Outlook 2007.

If they use any of the “technical bits” (below), the HTML emails they generate will not appear as intended to many readers.

It’s back to the drawing board for many of these programs and if you use one, you’ll be spending some time changing your email designs as well to make sure that your recipients that use Outlook 2007 (and it will be quite a large percentage) can read your emails as you intend.

Should I be Bothered?

If you only use simple text based emails, no.

If you use HTML based emails to send your messages then you may be affected.

Just because it looks correct in your email software, don’t assume that it looks the same on the screen of your intended readership, especially as people migrate to Outlook 2007.

Why the Change?

The previous Outlook editor has been removed and replaced by Word 2007. By integrating Word in this way into Outlook, it is able to use the text and HTML rendering capabilities of Word which means that all email content is displayed using Word.

Internet Explorer is no longer used by Outlook to display HTML email content. This change alone increases email security in Outlook 2007 immensely.

To further increase security only a subset of HTML and CSS is available. Anything that could be exploited as a security risk, is simply not supported anymore.

The Technical Bit

Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 uses the HTML rendering engine from Microsoft Office Word 2007 to display the content of a HTML email.

Thus the same HTML and style sheet support that is available in Word 2007 is available in Outlook 2007.

Basically the following previously available features are no longer available:

• Background images in tables or divisions
• Flash, or other plug-ins
• CSS positioning (absolute or relative)
• CSS floats and HTML frames
• Form components
• Replacing bullets with images
• Animated images (Gifs)
• No JavaScript events

It may seem like a backwards step to remove some HTML functionality from emails, but with security a growing concern for many, this should be seen as a benefit in the long run.