The Messaging Times

Email marketers routinely have a difficult time getting their carefully crafted HTML emails to look right in Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007. This is largely due to Microsoft using MS Word as their benchmark for HTML design. Of course, most email marketers do not create their messages in MS Word. Why would they when the majority of email clients don’t support this format – and messages created in Word will not look right in the majority of email clients.

As usual, the team at the Email Standards Project are on the case.

“…After testing the latest beta of Outlook 2010 and seeing the same poor standards support as 2007, a senior member of the Outlook team confirmed they plan on continuing to use Word to render HTML emails. Not only that, but early tests indicate that HTML support in the Word engine has not been improved in any way. Same bugs. Same quirks…” keep reading and see some screenshots

The Email Standards Project is calling on all of those who are frustrated with Outlooks proprietary approach to email rendering to send a clear and unified message to the Microsoft Team.

“…All you have to do is tweet your thoughts about this issue, and make sure you include the fixoutlook.org URL somewhere in the tweet. We’ll be pulling together every tweet that includes this link on the fixoutlook.org site to send a unified message to Microsoft. The more tweets, the more impact, so please start spreading the word today and encourage your friends and colleagues to do the same…”

So, if you’re tired of non-standard approaches to HTML email and want to get your email to look good, even in Outlook, get involved.

Thanks to the guys and gals working hard for us at the Email Standards Project!