Microsoft to ignore web standards in Outlook 2010 - enough is enough
As most of you know, our motivation for starting the Email Standards Project two years ago came from the release of Outlook 2007. Specifically, because of Microsoft’s decision to avoid using a browser to render HTML emails in place of a word processor. This immediately took standards-based email design off the table, forcing designers to abandon web standards for tables and font tags. You can read our original reaction and the subsequent call to arms that followed.
Since that time, we’ve had the pleasure of working with teams at Yahoo!, Apple, IBM, Google and even the Microsoft Entourage team. However, the elephant in the room was always Outlook. For a time things were looking good and we had the chance to chat with a number of passionate Microsoft employees who agreed with our position on standards and to try their best to improve future versions of Outlook. I’m sad to say, it looks like these efforts failed.
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.
To demonstrate just how bad the Word rendering engine is in Outlook 2010, here’s exactly the same email rendered in Outlook 2000, and then Outlook 2010. Click the image for a full sized version.
Microsoft explain their position
When Outlook 2007 was released there were lots of theories thrown around about what motivated the switch to the Word rendering engine. Many stipulated that it was a security related decision after the problems they’d been having with previous versions of Outlook. As it turns out, it was much simpler than that.
This was confirmed last week in a discussion with Outlook Product Manager Dev Balasubramanian. When asked why Outlook is using Word to compose HTML emails, this was his response:
“The reason for this lies in the benefit Outlook users gain by having Word as their e-mail authoring tool; rich tools like SmartArt, automatic styles and templates, and other benefits found in Word 2007 and 2010 enable Outlook users to write professional looking and visually stunning messages.”
“I am aware of where this decision on our part places Outlook from a standards perspective - at the same time, we ask that you consider the benefits Outlook users get from having Word tools in their e-mail authoring experience.”
When asked why Word is also used to render HTML emails, Dev explained:
“Having multiple HTML engines could reduce performance, as well as create an inconsistency in terms of what type of content the user is able to create vs. consume.”
Basically, Microsoft are using the Word rendering engine so emails composed in Outlook will look consistent when viewed by other Outlook users (also confirmed in this Microsoft white paper).
Email is not a walled garden
Microsoft’s decision to move away from the pre-2007 approach of using Internet Explorer to render emails clearly demonstrates they are not confident that emails composed using Word will render correctly in a web browser. Remember, for a second, that every other email client on the market today uses a web browser to render HTML email.
Surely Microsoft understand that if an Outlook 2010 user sends a Word formatted email to a friend using Apple Mail or Thunderbird and it’s unreadable, both sender and receiver suffer a poor experience. By aiming to please Outlook-to-Outlook senders, they are punishing Outlook customers who send to those using other email clients. Given the fact that Outlook 2007 only commands around 7% email client market share, it’s easy to see how short-sighted this is.
An obvious solution
To us, the solution couldn’t be more clear-cut. By updating the Word engine so it can compose and render standards based HTML, all of these problems are solved. Microsoft can have its pie and eat it too.
Outlook customers can receive email from outside sources without formatting problems. They can also rest assured that any emails they send to friends and colleagues not using Outlook will display as intended.
As the market upgrades from Outlook 2007 to 2010, HTML email design can move out of the pre-standards era of the 90’s bringing all the benefits that come with it.
Microsoft want your feedback on this decision
Outlook 2010 is still in beta and a year away from public release. Either we make it clear this is a bad decision now, or the disconnect between Outlook users and the rest of the email world will continue to grow. Email designers will be stuck building emails using the same clunky combination of tables for layout, inline CSS and font tags for many years to come.
Thankfully, Microsoft want to hear your feedback about this. From the Outlook Product Manager Dev Balasubramanian:
“The Office team, and Microsoft in general, is always open to and interested in customer feedback so we can prioritize the various needs of our diverse user base in product planning and development.”
“This conversation alone has reignited the topic within the Outlook and Word teams and in and of itself will contribute to future design considerations… We want to hear feedback on this position, and I’m sure you and your readers will provide it.”
It’s time for us to send the strongest message yet to Microsoft, and we need your help to get started. To make this happen, we’ve built fixoutlook.org.
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.
To get started, head to fixoutlook.org for all the details.
Absolutely amazing initiative and done with such style ; )
The “Outlook” isn’t rosy. Sorry, I couldn’t resist… Thanks for tackling this for all of us weary designers!
Microsoft reminds me of the ‘Big 3’ automakers here in the states. They make short-sighted decisions, churn out inferior products and expect their customers to be happy. Thank goodness for the alternative email clients out there.
To be honest im not supprised. Microsoft has never been good at making things look pretty or work well… they must have a pretty amazing marketing team to make such crap software sell.
Thank you for this. I am sick and weary of how I have to go back to the “dinosaur” ages of tables and inline styles when coding and designing email newsletters for my clients.
Not sure if MS would listen...but appreciate the efforts and allowing a very frustrated community an avenue to voice out.
I wholeheartedly support any effort to make Microsoft swallow the taste of their own stew.
Amazing initiative. All my love to you guys for the effort.
Hope 2010 also doesn’t change AGAIN the keyboard shortcuts. There should have an international law against companies changing shortcuts at every single version…
Great initiative, it’s about time that Microsoft respect the standards. Let’s hope we can turn this dinosaur around.
If you’re reading this, you are the resistance.
Outstanding work guys. Loving seeing “Outlook 2010” trending well above “Perez Hilton”!
Going from the average content of the 150 or so non-spam emails that end up in my inbox every day, being able to “...write professional looking and visually stunning messages” is the last thing on most email writer’s minds. Sort it out MS.
Althoug spreading the word through Twitter is a great idea, you should also try spreading it through blogs!!
Great initiative!
Microsoft is microft.
And standards with microsoft, it’s just dreaming ... :(
Why must Microsoft always make things that little bit more difficult than they need be.
And thank you ESP and making them, aware of it!
I really hope Microsoft take their blinkers off and pay attention to campaigns like this. Even Microsoft’s own Xbox 360 HTML emails have a warning at the top about using Outlook 2007 - to continue with a broken product (whatever they might argue), seems incredulous to me…
Dear Microsoft,
I use Outlook 2007 and you’re making me look like an idiot.
Let me start from the beginning and keep it really simple. First, I don’t want ANY of the things you think I do ... No smart art. No automatic styles or templates. No auto-whatevers.
I know you think I want these things and that they seem cool and sell products, but no. I just want things that work. Things are only cool when they work. And “work” doesn’t mean 7% of the time ... it means all the time.
You know, I think sometimes you should leave Redmond and take a look around outside. You know you’ve been there too long when you decide it’s OK to put these features in place that rely on everybody having Microsoft products, as there’s only really two places that’s the case: Redmond and the 1990’s. And I don’t live in either of those places.
I know it’s difficult to accept, but out here in the real world, not everybody uses Microsoft and that renders features such as these USELESS. Every Microsoft user knows, or finds out pretty damn quick, that even if they manage to compose something beautiful in Outlook, it’s going to turn into a garbled mess the moment it lands in somebody elses inbox.
And do you know, when it does end up a garbled mess, it’s me, the sender that looks like a dumb-ass. You’re making me look like a dumb-ass. Don’t you think that maybe it’s your responsibility to me as your customer to not make me look like a dumb-ass? OK, maybe too big an ask you say, but at least just stop me looking like a dumb-ass by ensuring that my email displays correctly ANYWHERE THAT IT MIGHT END UP?
The math is pretty simple, no? You provide email software, I buy it. I write beautiful emails and send them to people, you make sure that the emails display perfectly wherever I send them. If you can just get that down, I’ll even be happy for you to build in your “cool” features again like smart art and auto-whatever (I won’t use them though and nor will 99.9% of all other Outlook users, but I know it makes you happy to put stuff like this there).
So please Microsoft, specifically Microsoft Outlook team, stop making me look like an idiot (at least as far as email is concerned) and do the right thing. I know that the Word department are bigger than you, call you names and threaten to beat up on you if you don’t use their engine, but you can stand up to them, you really can.
So please, please, please, just give up on the Word engine and save me from self-imploding in a ball of impotent rage and disbelief. Embrace standards, they’re not as scary as you think. And leave Redmond once in a while, even if just for a breath of fresh air.
Yours lovingly
Your customer
thank you for the information. Your post has been translated into french on the UGAL blog.
Fine, fix Outlook. But also fix fixoutlook.org - that giant scrolling background made me feel sick. No motion not under user’s control - and no flicker (see Web content accessibility guidelines).
Or provide an accessible alternative.
I don’t think we should be putting pressure on Microsoft to be more standards friendly in this case. I think we should let them dig their own hole. Using the AWFUL Word HTML rendering engine within Outlook will just cause even more people to get fed up with it and try other alternatives - of which there are free excellent quality open source alternatives. This can only be a good thing.
Amazing initiative! smart way to use social media
Fantastic project, let’s hope it is a much needed wake up call for the right people at Microsoft!
The list of defects in Outlook is very long. Making lack of standards based HTML support the only issue is just plain silly. Just to mention a few other glaring errors:
- Outlook refuses to let you use usenet style conversation. Even when you sitch quoting on, it sucks cosmical.
- Outlook doesn’t fully support S/MIME.
- The search interface is clunky and next to useless. Try comparing to Thunderbird.
This is not a cool initiative!
Since Outlook 2007 the product uses the Word rendering machine. So it is not new. If you think there is a standard in displaying emails in email-clients, you are absolutly wrong.
The advantage of using the word rendering machine is simple: Everybody can create HTML emails with Word and send them in the same look and feel with Outlook. Both applications work pretty well together. It does not need a designer or special software for this any more.
So I think that this is a really great thing!
You want us to rally behind the email marketing industry who is leaning on Microsoft to support a contrived standard so that you can more easily send annoying and pointless HTML emails? Sorry, I only support causes that benefit humanity in some way. Use RSS.
Nice twitter thingy though.
Great work, thank you to everyone who helped get this going. Why does MS always have to try and make life difficult? Hoping standards and common sense will prevail.
Hi,
As a guy who reads a huge number of mails everyday, I have never been overtaken by a whim to compose such beautiful looking emails.
And the fact that these emails may not render well in other platforms might actually take the fun out of it all.
I don’t expect my sweetheart to install outlook 2010 in order to see my dazzling mail.
Standardization isn’t a bad thing. May be a new improved CSS standard will make such cool mails a run-of-the-mill affair in all possible clients.
Regards
I do agree it would be easier if 2007/2010 worked to 2003’s rendering format, but they have simplified the issue somewhat by only comparing 2 packages.
That email example above will be relying on HTML standards that wouldn’t necessarily be supported by a lot of other email clients & web based systems either.
I think too many people assume that if it looks ok in Outlook it’ll look ok in everything else.... but lotus notes, hotmail, gmail etc...even IE vs Firefox versions of the same web-based system all have rendering quirks that need to be accounted for generically.
Maybe it’s time to simplify email creatives?
Fixing Outlook 2010 will not allow us to use CSS at will as long as the webmails keep stripping them.
So why not bashing Gmail or Yahoo? Even while they are no cooperating with the emailstandards project, we still need to use tables for perfect rendering in their clients.
PS: comparing outlook 2000 and outlook 2010 is a bit weird, with the versions 2003 en 2007 in between.
Good campaign.
However, email is old and dying. When Google Wave get’s out to the public, I don’t personally see any reason to use standard email any more.
I use Outlook at work, because it’s a company standard. For personal emails GMail and alternative desktop clients keep me happy. Like Paul, I really don’t care how much they screw up Outlook in the end. The sooner the better. This way, the already better alternatives will become mainstream.
So, good work Microsoft! Dig yourself a hole and just disappear, please!
Thanks so much for the great comments so far everyone. If you check out the current standards support across the popular email clients, you’ll see that only a few of them have poor support (Gmail being the obvious standout).
If Microsoft can shift to a standards based approach for Outlook 2010, you’ll see a lot more pressure on other email clients to follow suit.
NO NO NO NO NO!
Mail should be plain text. If you want html go to a web-browser. You people are deadwrong. Enjoy your security-flaws, spam and porno mails with video.
As a relative newcomer to the online development world it seems to me that my two constant problems are Outlook and IE why oh why oh why do Microsoft so consistently seem to play god with the web?
I’m glad you’re taking this stand not hopeful that the giant will really listen and fearful that the monster will have its way whatever anyone says sadly.
PS I use MS products daily I love Vista and find it simple to use and easy to fix when it goes wrong but just come to the party on the web MS PLEASE! :-(
Love this post - and love your site and blog, as well.
Fixoutlook.org looks pretty crappy in IE8, though :)
#fixoutlook
Let them please continue this wacko plan. People will finally be given a good reason to start using software that actually works. Hereby I say YES to Word as a rendering engine for Outlook. Want an email client that works? There are plenty options out there.
Is there a way for non-Twitter users to contribute to this effort? The best way for Microsoft to hear us is to have one unified voice, and splitting the Twitter users and non-Twitter users will divide our message.
That’s a noble cause, but where in this post, or the email message I received regarding this, or on the fixoutlook website is there a *link* to some kind of statement from Microsoft where they “confirmed they plan on using the… Word rendering engine to display HTML emails in Outlook 2010”? A Google search for “outlook 2010 html rendering” turned up the same quotes without any references back to a Microsoft website. Searching for “outlook dev balasubramanian html rendering” returns about the same results. None of the websites returned are what I’d call prominent tech sites or blogs.
I’m all for having Outlook use the IE8 or Gecko or whatever engine instead of an old and busted one, but the lack of sources for your petition makes it come across as another chain/sensationalist email. If you can get some Microsoft.com links into your petition, I’ll gladly jump on board.
Actually, I’d prefer to have HTML NOT be a part of ANY email I receive-I prefer plain text for email messages.
With plain text, I can get to the content of a message regardless of whether I read it on a mobile device, a computer, or… When I get email on a mobile device, for example, the beginning of a message is all “garbage,” which usually means I have either received a piece of spam/advertising or that my mobile device is ancient (or both); as an email sender, you have no control over how your intended recipient will be seeing your message, and therefore should plan on the most easily-seen/parsed method of receipt-plain text.
Although I agree in principle with what this blog posting requests as well as having software be standards compliant on things, why do I really need to have HTML in ANY email message-just get to the point in the message and jettison the tags, images, and so on? If it were up to me, there would be NO HTML code in email messages, but instead plain text.
Discuss…
Pedro, the quotes in the post are straight from an Outlook Product Manager at Microsoft. The screenshot above even confirms that Outlook 2010 is using Word to render emails. Trust us, this is very real.
I have personally been in discussions with Dev from the Outlook team these past few days.
Yes, completely updating the Word compose/render engine is ideal. If the product is already in Beta, I doubt this will happen.
If I may suggest a compromise: Have emails composed in Outlook also include a metatag indicating they should be rendered with Word’s engine and use IE for everything else. Similar concept to the IE8 Standards Mode metatag. Or similarly, provide to us designers a metatag we can include in our HTML that would tell Outlook to render with IE.
This would be a huge improvement over our current 2007 situation and should be pretty quick to implement.
I couldn’t agree more with the SOLUTION recommended in this initiative. FIX WORD! For so many users, especially novices, Word is THE tool for creating HTML code. But the code it creates is a mess. Office is supposed to be a “mature” application, yet it just doesn’t live up to that moniker.
No need to discuss the merits of HTML in emails here; whether we like it or not HTML is used in emails (for many reasons positive and negative). The point of this discussion is to get Microsoft to play nicely in the email client sandbox.
As a professional working in the industry, I must say that to have Microsoft Outlook on board with standards for emails would make my job as a designer, interface coder and project manager (i.e. web design business owner) much, much easier.
Many of my clients constantly require HTML formatted emails, and when I have to explain to them that in order for their message to render properly in Outloook it’s going to take a bit longer for me to code, particularly if there’s changes to the design further down the line, and that we have to limit our creative approach, they think it’s my fault! I’m tired of taking the blame.
If the Outlook team would step up to the plate and make things right, I think the benefits to everyone (including Microsoft) would far out weight the business costs (whatever those could possibly be) from forcing everyone to use crappy, out-dated, ineficcient code to compose HTML emails.
Thank you to the Email Standards Project for creating fixoutlook.org.
Hey guys, you forgot to include “plain text only” option on your newsletter.
--yours:
--I don’t need spam in my email.
Microsoft’s weak attempt at rationalisation is nonsense. They are effectively downgrading Outlook. This move seems designed to slow the use of web standards.
I suggest not following Microsoft back to the previous millennium, but opting for the same approach as I use on my site; tell users of Internet Explorer to upgrade to a web browser that does support web standards.
Great campaign, campaign monitor! I really hope MS deigns to listen to us this time!
Call me old fashioned, but I think HTML e-mail is evil anyway. Obviously, it has it’s uses, and I’d much prefer Microsoft and every other company out there to stick to modern standards, but hey… plain text FTW!
Hey text people! Millions of people love HTML email, and opt-in to get HTML marketing messages. People like pictures! Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean it’s evil.
I have never gotten porn spam or a virus getting HTML email. It makes me wonder what you are looking at on the internet to be so concerned ;)
The bottom line is Microsoft is making a poor product and needs to get into the 21st century!
If you don’t like HTML, turn in off in your email client. That’s why we all send multipart-MIME right?
That said, there are a lot of people who go way overboard designing their HTML newsletters. They aren’t webpages people - keep it simple! Your email has a life of about 30 seconds, then people move on.
THAT said, all I want is to be able to create simple, functional HTML emails that render predictably. Nested tables, a couple of links, an image or two, and I’m done.
FixOutlook.org has a grammatical error. In the first line of the body, “Microsoft have ...” should be “Microsoft has ...” If you aren’t responsible for that site’s content, please forward it to the person who is.
LOL this website has 32 validation errors. Let’s blame Microsoft for this as well. :D :D
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://www.email-standards.org/blog/entry/microsoft-to-ignore-web-standards/&charset;=(detect+automatically)&doctype=Inline&group=0
This is really about MS losing the browser wars, and trying to break things to the only ‘standard’ they have left, everyone still using Exchange and Office.
They tried to break the web, but the web wouldn’t let them.
There are great comments all around. HTML email isn’t going away, and Outlook isn’t going to influence that one bit. So even if you’re a purist and think email should be Text-Only (which would essentially be a universal standardization) then I’d be OK with that.
The key here is to get everyone in the email rendering business to play by the same rules.
So our support the Email Standards Project. It’s good for EVERYONE. And if you’re wondering how to get word out besides using Twitter, just spread the work in every way you know how. Post it on FaceBook, talk about it on your Blog, Digg stories about this, or maybe even send an email to everyone you know who would care.
http://digg.com/microsoft/Microsoft_Outlook_Is_Broken
Just do something!
Microsoft should be slapped in their face. Such an ignorant bunch they are.
Good project, I hope this really has an impact. Microsoft really is one of the worst companies I know of. A shame they have become so rich. They don’t deserve it at all, not a single bit.
Standards aren’t a new thing and they still don’t honor them.
I agree with the effort. Outlook should use the IE renderer for HTML emails. But I don’t think they will, and the reason isn’t just because want to make ‘rich tools like SmartArt, automatic styles and templates’ from an MS Word authoring/rendering component available to Outlook users. I think this is just more ‘fallout’ from the whole FTC and EU anti-trust actions against Microsoft and the alleged illegal ‘bundling’ that they committed with Internet Explorer. For years and years, supposedly tech-savvy individuals have chastised Microsoft when they stated that having a universal HTML COM-component renderer as part of the OS was necessary and useful. We now know that it may not have been necessary, but it definitely is USEFUL. I hope all sides now appreciate the utility of having a core HTML-rendering component in the OS is; and, imho, it’s fine if it defaults to IE.
Microsoft responds to FixOutlook.org: http://blogs.msdn.com/outlook/archive/2009/06/24/the-power-of-word-in-outlook.aspx
There is no widely-recognized consensus in the industry about what subset of HTML is appropriate for use in e-mail for interoperability. The “Email Standards Project” does not represent a sanctioned standard or an industry consensus in this area. Should such a consensus arise, we will of course work with other e-mail vendors to provide rich support in our products.
Sounds like it’s time to develop said “sanctioned standards ans industry consensus”.
I really don’t know what is Microsoft’s strategy, they lauched windows live mail desktop client appart and outlook. There will not be practical if Microsoft decides to continue developing WLM desktop client besides and outdated outlook
Microsoft’s response to the Twitter campaign on their blog (http://bit.ly/HYbS3) is total BS.
Dear Microsoft,
I understand that the 2010 version of Outlook will be renamed to “Look Out!” Is that true? I’ve also heard that it will be twice as long loading as 2007, which is 4 times as long as 2003, which was twice as long as 2000. Does that mean I should start it up before I leave at night so it’s ready for the next day?
It used to work so well. It was fast, messages rendered quickly...at least till the “improvements” were distributed.
Do you guys at Microsoft actually use Outlook for email? Or do you use something like Hotmail or GMail?
And what’s this about HTML rendering using <gag> Word? Sorry, MS, but Word is hardly an efficient HTML rendering engine. Have you ever LOOKED at the code it generates? My gawd...I think my dogs could write better code.
Anyway, maybe it’s time to let those old guard programmers out to pasture and start living in the real world. Otherwise, it’s likely that people will get tired of being told what’s best and migrate to something that really is.
(I wonder if we can use Thunderbird in an Enterprise environment?)
Hey, I was just curious.
Being an old timer on the internet, I recognize that Standards have definitions, and those are laid out in RFCs.
Do you have an RFC in the works?
You’re saying here that Microsoft isn’t following web standards.
So, what RFC(s) are they not following when it comes to Outlook and HTML presentation?
Microsoft has answered and, as expected, they don’t care. Ah, the perks of having the majority market share. I wish I didn’t have to care what my customers wanted either.
http://blogs.msdn.com/outlook/archive/2009/06/24/the-power-of-word-in-outlook.aspx
THEIR RESPONSE IS BULLSHIT, I AGREE.
@ eweiand
Great… At least it got their attention. Now folks need to let them know directly! Go to linked blog post and give them your feedback. Keep the pressure up!
HTML Email is the spawn of the devil!
Email should be TEXT ONLY!
Good on microsoft for messing up html in email!
Finally someone is doing something about this. I read about fixoutlook.org this morning in the TechCrunch email, and am proud that an Australian based company is helping to get behind such an important part of the future for email newsletters.
Good luck, I’ll be following and helping in any way I can :) hopefully Microsoft will sit up and listen to the community that continue to purchase and support their products.
It’s no use, the Microsoft’s blog entry/response is moderated. You really think they’re gonna let us flood their comments-area with our demands? Try it…
Is there any way to add my voice to this without having a twitter account. Sometimes I have to make HTML Emails for Outlook, and there’s no way you can make them
1. Look like the design
2. Follow any accessibily / markup standard whatsoever
3. Work on outlook
at the same time.
This is purely because of Microsoft’s bizarre decision to render stuff with MS Word.
Therefore I wish to add my voice to what should be a wholly unnecessary clamour. Who do I send an email to?
Ryan said
“This is purely because of Microsoft’s bizarre decision to render stuff with MS Word. “
Suggest an alternative when the EU has said they cannot supply Windows with IE installed.
The best alternative would be TEXT ONLY email.
@Ryan I think it will have the best effect on Twitter. A single email wont do much now. Can’t you create a Twitter account just for this purpose? Registering is simple and fast and you don’t have to twitter at all (and you wont get bugged by doing nothing except tweeting the URL of course). I have had my account since the beginning of last year and have never really used it (not even now), you kinda forget about it if you don’t want to actually become a twitterer. Deleting the account through the simple control panel is also possible although you might then want to keep that account for things like this. Twitter is becoming one of the most popular platforms for making yourself heard, not just making random tweets about your banal day. I can understand if you don’t like all the twitternology ;-)
The alternative would be to use a rendering engine that is a thousand times better than Trident (the name of IE’s rendering engine) like Webkit, Gecko or Presto. The fact that Microsoft hasn’t already done this long ago is also proof that they would rather stick to their worthless creations for decades than implement an engine that just works. It’s Microsoft Ignorance™.
@ Kevin
That is why professional email designers provide a plain text-only option so folks like you can view plain text emails. This effort in no way changes that. View your email as text if you like and others can benefit from HTML if they wish. You are implying exclusivity in the standards effort where none exists.
@moosedesign
However, it also means that not all users are clamoring for this change, and some actively don’t want it fixed. Some might even want it removed.
So, which customers are right?
@ Jedediah Smith
You are proceeding on a false assumption. Namely, that all HTML emails are essentially unsolicited spam. Subscribed newsletters, product updates, bills, etc. There are a myriad occasions when an HTML email can more effectively communicate than plain text or RSS alone.
Perhaps its not well known since it seems like its being repeated often enough: as long as designers create emails with plain text and HTML components, the users remain entirely in control of their viewing experience.
@moosedesign
“There are a myriad occasions when an HTML email can more effectively communicate than plain text or RSS alone.”
Such as? And please, include attachments in plain text, and not as HTML only.
Seriously, I’d like to know. I’m not a designer, so obviously some things are beyond me, but I’d really like to know what you can say in HTML that can’t be said in plain text.
@moosedesign
Oh, I should add, the fact that you included RSS (a delivery mechanism) with plain text (a format) as what HTML (a format) can do that they can’t makes you look a little less than credible. Sorry if that offends, but, seriously, if you want to talk what you can do with HTML that you can’t do in something else, don’t even bring up RSS. If you want to compare something to RSS, compare SMTP to it. The fact that someone else did first isn’t an excuse.
The biggest thing is images. They speak a thousand words! Think of the video screen shots from the Obama campaign, company logos, signatures, group pictures, etc. Colors are nice too, and hyperlinks. All that internet stuff.
But as I always say . . . if you don’t like HTML, just turn it off in your email client. This discussion here is more about those who do want to use HTML.
I am really disheartened that so many people are going right along with this blatant sham of a cause. As was pointed out on the MS blog, this organization clearly exists to serve a few commercial interests and is demanding adherence to standards that do not exist.
Email is standardized primarily by RFC2822 and RFC2045-2049 in which you will find no mention whatsoever of HTML. There was a brief spark of interest in a W3C standard for HTML email but nothing came of it. And that discussion concerned the interests of email end users, not email marketers.
To those of you in the email marketing business, I’m sorry that your job is hard and software doesn’t work the way you want it to, but there is absolutely no basis for demanding that developers modify their software to suit your needs. You are not their customers and you do not represent any interests outside of your own. But, I suppose you can’t be blamed for trying.
To those of you who are not email marketers, why are you here? Because they made a neat Twitter app? Because they said “web standards” and “Microsoft”? Is that all it takes for you to get out your torches and pitchforks? Please, think before you get angry. This sort of mob mentality is dangerous.
@sam
Images can easily be attached to a message. But, I’ll argue with you on a couple points. We’re talking about what you can do in HTML to more effectively communicate than you can in plain text.
How do company logos or signatures more effectively communicate?
How would a signature more effectively communicate?
I might give you colors, but that’s a stretch. Would anything I’ve said here make you react different if it were pink? Or orange? Or blue?
Hyperlinks? Hyperlinks in a plain text message in Outlook work just fine. If I get an email that says http://www.cnn.com, its clickable. But wait, you say, I don’t want it to say http://www.cnn.com, I want it to say ‘Jimbob’s fancy news site’. You know what I say? Transparency rules. You think your url is ugly? Get prettier urls.
And here’s my argument against ‘If you don’t like HTML, turn it off in your email client’.
Ok, lets say we do that. Lets say the argument becomes ‘Make outlook handle HTML right and automatically convert html into plain text’. And lets say it does that. And it’s not pretty enough. Then we’re back to square one. Email you send doesn’t display pretty enough.
And I still would like to know: What in HTML 4.01 isn’t currently supported?
@Moosedesign
I am not making that assumption at all. On the contrary, I am keenly aware that email marketing is often ethical and effective and many people don’t mind receiving HTML email, but there is no earthly way that anybody likes it enough that they should care passionately about standardizing it, except those who profit from it.
HTML email doesn’t violate any standard but neither is there any standard mandating its support or the particulars of how it is implemented, which makes the accusation that MS is “ignoring web standards” entirely baseless.
@ John
Happy to elaborate… Although I tend to be long winded so apologies in advance!
First, since its not a matter of exclusivity the question of “which customers are right” is moot. The axiom of “the customer always being right” holds. If you wish to receive email as plain text you may do so freely. If you wish to see email as HTML you may do so. One option does not block the other. The email standards effort seeks to benefit those that would choose to view HTML rich emails. So as long as that audience exists and that option doesn’t impact the other, then there should be no issue. Why block the experience I want if it doesn’t affect you?
Second, we may have a syntactical chasm here that I want to avoid getting bogged down in: I’m not sure that my statement of “more effectively communicate” can accurately be restated as “what you can say in HTML that can’t be said in plain text"… Its not that it can’t be said, but the manner in which its said. Let me elaborate:
If design can be summarized to be the art or process of composing a communication though the use of elements as diverse as logo(s), image(s), text (typography), symbols, shapes, color(s) and scale to establish hierarchy and context, then HTML is merely a tool in the communicator’s quiver (mixed metaphor, I know). Plain text imparts hierarchy in one dimension - vertically. HTML is merely a tool to allow for hierarchy and communication in multiple dimensions.
Not to misunderstand, design is not just about making things pretty, it is also about efficiency of communication (the irony of this long post isn’t lost on me… actually, come to think of it, it sort of helps makes my point).
So, what is the bearing on this discussion… You want an example, so let’s use a newsletter I’ve subscribed to as a common one. Some of the elements might include: a logo, product logos, supportive artwork (products, perhaps or diagram schematics - I work with a lot of engineering companies), stories, articles, etc.
Through design, our newsletter can provide content options in as many columns as we need to present the reader with the information we (or more importantly, they) have determined to be most consequential to them right up front without having to scroll through possibly hundreds or thousands of lines of text with only hard returns to establish breaks and hierarchy. We can provide descriptive imagery so the reader doesn’t have to click a link, leave the context of the email client, and launch a browser to view and then return to the email client to continue reading. We can provide graphic recognition for a brand that might be confused with another if just spelled out, we can imply urgency of action with color and shapes, we can create context for a story or link with a sidebar or image, we can optimize the text size and line length for maximum legibility… and we can do it all without ever having to leave your email client.
And the point of it is this: HTML enables design options, which in turn enables efficiency of communication. And if something about that simply isn’t your cup of tea, all you need do select “plain text”. You won’t get images. You won’t get context. You won’t get hierarchy (other than vertical), and you won’t get any meta meaning other than that spelled out explicitly.
To use an “old media” counter point, can you imagine the New York Times set in a single typeface, in a single full-width column, with no images? Or an even older media example, I suppose the cave paintings of Lascaux could have just been written out, but would it have communicated the subtleties of the hunt or the culture? Or perhaps road signs could be spelled out but would reading a sentence about a deer crossing be as efficient as the pictogram…
My late professor at VCU, Philip Meggs said it all much more eloquently and succinctly than I ever could, “"the essence [of graphic design] is to give order to information, form to ideas, expression and feeling to artifacts that document human experience.”
Anyway, I hope that helps! :)
PS. I’m not sure I understood the statement about attachments… All emails can be coded with HTML and encoded plain text that doesn’t use any attachments. Not sure if that answers what you were asking…
@ Jedediah Smith
No earthly way? Well, I’ll choose to read “profit” the two ways I see it: 1) the company profits by communicating effectively with their users, and 2) the user profits from the information provided.
So, if its more expensive and time consuming to code up an HTML email for my participating clients than it has to be due to one intransigent email client, yes, I will kick up a fuss.
And I don’t think you have to have an ISO to have a workable consensus on what can be considered a “standard”.
You assert, “You are not their customers and you do not represent any interests outside of your own.” I don’t agree, actually… Firstly, I think you will find that there are many designers who use Outlook, of their own volition or otherwise because of their corporate infrastructure or Exchange, or whatever. Secondly, if the recipient of a given piece of email is having a sub par experience vs. every other email client out there due simply to the client itself, then that is indeed a potential user issue.
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@ John
I don’t think you quite understand how plain text is encoded. The email client doesn’t have to do anything more than read the plain text equivalent. Its not “automatically convert[ing] html into plain text”. Its there, in the email with all the line 72 character line breaks and URL links just how you like them.
At this point, I’m glad they decided to stick with a broken outlook. But I hope this campaign goes extremely viral, that way everyone gets unhappy, decides to ditch Outlook, then Outlook’s share dumps further down the drain.
thanks
@ John
“Oh, I should add, the fact that you included RSS (a delivery mechanism) with plain text (a format) as what HTML (a format) can do that they can’t makes you look a little less than credible. Sorry if that offends, but, seriously, if you want to talk what you can do with HTML that you can’t do in something else, don’t even bring up RSS.”
Not offended… Actually, that was just a response to Jebediah’s assertion to use RSS for marketing instead of HTML email, so it wasn’t my suggestion/comparison and it was likely used as a catch all for clarity’s sake so I’m sure he’s not going to hold it against you for your semantic quibbling. Quoted, “Sorry, I only support causes that benefit humanity in some way. Use RSS.” Feel free to let him know he should have said XML, but personally I don’t begrudge his choice of words. I’m surprised you do though, as a plain text-only advocate, I would think the words that were written alone to be enough to impart meaning.
Can’t say I’m worried about my credibility with someone who has evidenced a lack of understanding of the basic mechanics of plain text encoding within emails, but there we are. Can’t please everyone.
@Moosedesign
If it comes down to whether or not email newsletters are cherished by humanity at large, the discussion is probably over, because there is no hard data on that.
However, I’m satisfied to leave it up to everyone to personally decide whether HTML email is valuable enough to them to fight for it the same way the web was fought for. Despite the sensational headlines, web standards are under no threat in this case. It’s all about the newsletters. And those are under no threat either, they will just remain a pain in the butt to make, as they have been for some time now.
Save the newsletters!
I don’t know why Outlook have to follow web standards… being an e-mail client!!
After tearing my hair out with multiple problems with Outlook 2007 (repeated crashing, instability, terrible html rendering support), I finally made the switch to gmail as my permanent mail client—it’s pretty easy to upload messages to gmail from outlook. I haven’t looked back. If Microsoft keeps it up, I may be uninstalling the entire Office Suite this time next year.
HTML in email is evil and should never have been allowed. Email should be text only with attachments allowed.
The trouble with people who use HTML in email is that they assume that everyone else can see it displayed the way they have written it. Most people I know have HTML rendering switched off. There’s a good reason for that. We get enough textual spam as it is - we don’t need it in large bold fancy flashing script.
Sorry, but as much as I dislike Microsoft I think your campaign is misguided.
Sorry, but all of you who are demanding plain text emails, get out. This is the wrong discussion for you.
This is about HTML emails. They will not vanish from the internet today in favor of plain text emails, so forget it. HTML emails have a lot of benefits over plain text. Bought something from an online store? You can get nice tables showing you the money you paid, taxes, shipping costs, product IDs, product names, etc. Are you subscribed to a company’s mailing list to get new product updates? Then inline images and things like lists (<ul> tags for example) will make it much more easier for you to see what product it is, what it can do, etc.
Sure you can make lists in plain text format and Outlook may automatically make plain text URLs clickable, but that’s for people who PREFER plain text emails. THIS discussion is solely about people who PREFER HTML emails. So as I said, stop undermining this campaign to make Microsoft change their rendering engine for Outlook. (Most of) you, as it seems, do not understand what this is about and/or why it is important what we are “asking” Microsoft to do.
Splitting the email providers/designers and the email “customers"/viewers apart is not a good approach either because in the end both the guys who make professional (or amateur) HTML emails and the people who read them are communicating with each other. If one side is “weakened” it affects the other side. If Outlook 2010 uses a crap-engine like that of Word it makes designing “cross-email-client-compatible” emails harder which is going to result in some emails not working in Outlook or in other mail clients depending on what the designer chose to not support due to the extra labor it would take to make. And the neglected email clients (either Outlook 2010 or “all the others") might end up receiving plain text emails instead of nice designs. Which is what some of you would prefer anyways, BUT MANY OTHERS DON’T.
Word uses a nasty engine to create and display HTML, believe us. It’s not only about adhering to the HTML standards but about good practice, e.g. NOT using tables for layout, having a SEMANTIC structure as well as being able to use “advanced” (at least for Microsoft it seems so advanced that they just can’t implement it properly) technologies like CSS.
And Microsoft’s argument about security is NONSENSE. You can “easily” (I guess for Microsoft it’s not so easy) make an email client that doesn’t execute any scripts.
And you CAN make an HTML email composer create relatively good markup (compared to the crap that the Word engine creates). It’s just a matter of actually investing time and money into it, which Microsoft obviously isn’t prepared to do (yet) because marketing and deadlines are (MUCH, MUCH) more important than that. This Apple ad is not so untrue: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MimCZikP8cY
@John Byng and all the others with that opinion
THAT’S FINE. But the problem is THIS DISCUSSION IS NOT ABOUT HTML VS PLAIN TEXT.
Whether email designers provide both a (nice) plain text version along with their HTML version IS ANOTHER TOPIC.
HTML email is here, there is no going back to the 20th century. If you don’t want it, you can disable it. But let those who don’t mind it use it. And let those who make them make them well and compatible. STANDARDS EXIST FOR A REASON.
THIS IS ABOUT STANDARDS. NOT HTML VS PLAIN TEXT EMAILS.
Another poor decision by MS. I guess they were thinking… Well, our browsers suck and ignore standards so why stop there?
ID10T Error.
FAIL
As a few others have stated, this argument and cause is not about HTML v plaintext email, nor is it about Word/IE HTML rendering capability vs an alternative from the likes of Firefox, Chrome, Opera, etc. In my mind, this is about reduced functionality vs increased functionality; about the LACK of options coming as a direct result of supposedly ‘pro-consumer’ advocacy efforts by the likes of the European Union (which is really just fronting all of the angst and asspirations of competing web browser vendors).
Very few people want to use Word-based SmartArt or Word-based Charting tools or Word-based Equation Editor objects in their emails for two reasons: (1) only other Outlook users would be able to parse/render them, and (2) how many people really want SmartArt or Equations in their email to begin with. However, web-design standards… things like CSS-support, animated GIFs, etc… have far more utility; and not just for spam-marketers.
@temhawk - “The alternative would be to use a rendering engine that is a thousand times better than Trident (the name of IE’s rendering engine) like Webkit, Gecko or Presto.”
This comment also misses the point, because although we each could spend days arguing the relative merits of one HTML renderer vs another; the fundamental issue isn’t on the technical merits of any of these. All of them including even Microsoft’s own IE, are much more capable HTML-renderers than MS Word. That is undisputed. Even if Microsoft licensed or made use of alternative, suposedly ‘technically superior’ HTML renderer. It would now be deemed as “Microsoft’s choice” and I guarantee someone in the EU or at alternative HTML-renderer vendor (like Google, or AOL, or Apple, or Sun, or whoever) would complain that such a default renderer shouldn’t even be there… or that Microsoft has to offer a ‘ballot screen’ of which HTML-render the OS (and by extension other apps such as Outlook should default to). But while a ballot screen may work for the standalone browser choice, I would imagine such a mechanism becomes logistically unworkable when you are talking about being programmatically accessed via third-party apps. That’s why Microsoft should be allowed to continue to offer at least the IE-renderer in ALL versions of Windows, so that any application (including Microsoft’s own Outlook) can at a minimum rely upon the existence of a defined programmatic component for rendering HTML (even though that specific HTML-renderer may or may not be the technical ‘ideal’ choice, it at least would provide a universal lowest common denominator of functionality).
Who really care about standards (Especially standards in the email message)
99.9% of HTML mails are nothing but ads and going to the spam folder or getting deleted instantly.
Is it just me or am i the only person to never have a problem with outlook ???
I think Microsoft will continue to intentionally “create” issues in the name of user experience if they feel it will impact (improve) market share by forcing other business users to use their product in order to make everything clean.
@ Alec
I understand what this is about, what you quoted was in response to this:
“Suggest an alternative when the EU has said they cannot supply Windows with IE installed.”
I meant that if Microsoft is really prohibited from using IE instead of Word they could use other engines.
@Holly
You are lucky then and the ones making professional HTML emails for you are not so lucky. Standards are kind of about consideration vs arrogance. They do not only exist to shorten the gap between innovation and widely available implementation (of this innovation) but also to make designers’ lives easier.
Do you support the Iranian opposition? Probably. But does the violence over there affect you directly? Probably not. It’s the same thing with web standards. Even if you don’t feel directly affected by compatibility issues, it does force developers to spend a lot more time working out (major) inconsistencies; time they could spend learning new things to be able to offer even more capability to their customers; time that’s wasted, because the biggest OS/software company is “incapable” of sticking to the standards ten years into the 21st century. It makes me sick.
I want Outlook to use Word as its composition editor.
I don’t particularly care what it uses to render incoming HTML, as long as its readable, but if its not Word then it probably should be the default browser.
But I would like to insist that the HTML I send is 100% standards compliant, so that the recipients can read it.
temhawk said…
“@John Byng and all the others with that opinion
THAT’S FINE. But the problem is THIS DISCUSSION IS NOT ABOUT HTML VS PLAIN TEXT. “
No it isn’t - its about spam marketers wanting to flood our email boxes with bandwidth wasting HTML. All this rubbish about ‘professional email designers’ SPAMMERS you mean!
Wow, you really don’t get it.
1. Professional Email Designers aren’t necessarily spammers. Actually, almost always not, because companies that can employ designers generally don’t break the law by sending spam. Or perhaps you don’t understand what SPAM actually is?
2. SPAMMERs (and anybody else), can already flood your inbox with tons of HTML mail. It just doesn’t look as good as it could.
So, do you have any valid points?
@mike
I can’t beleve. Microsoft “has to” apply to standards… often he doesn’t as its commercial products “became” standards, but users need Microsoft to apply to standards or we will step backwards… we’ll go back to the BBS!!! Standards are moving forward also, so why you buy an obsolete product?
Microsoft has a big responsability because of the number of users it supports. I often say that things changed about year 2000 with Microsoft software, delivering quality as an add-on. But again and again, Microsoft with standards and new releases policies are lowering quality again.
@Phil Daniels
Unfortunately using one engine to compose HTML emails and another one to read them would cause (major) viewing inconsistencies even within the same email client. It’s either this or that engine, and standards demand that it not be the Word engine as it’s old, obviously not standards-compliant and produces code using outdated structuring methods.
@Kevin who wrote:
“No it isn’t - its about spam marketers wanting to flood our email boxes with bandwidth wasting HTML. All this rubbish about ‘professional email designers’ SPAMMERS you mean!”
Maybe you haven’t noticed, but email is also used for other things than spam. Now just because spam exists, and I’ve said this in another post too, it isn’t a reason to halt all advancement in web technologies. I also don’t think that spammers try to waste your bandwidth; it’s more about selling and phishing scams. I also get the feeling that many of you don’t use email filters. E.g. I get some emails in my “Junk” mailbox every day and that already warns me that these emails are probably… “junk”. Of course I read over the subject titles to verify myself and if I’m not certain I look into it. But most of the time you can tell right away from the subject title whether it is spam or not.
Modern email-clients do a good job at detecting spam, whether it’s in HTML or plain text emails. And by the way, someone could waste your bandwidth with just a plain text email too, as far as I know.
And seriously screw you for having no respect for “professional email designers”. Again I must ask myself what you’re actually doing on a site like this, considering how little experience you seem to have in this field.
This is a surprise to who?
An excellent campaign, you have my full support.
I agree that already Outlook 2007 was a step backward, because there is no downward compability, since it uses word with .docx Format. That really makes you look stupid, with an e-mail you send from your new Microsoft-Suite and hardly anybody can read it. Please Bill, keep things simple and working. The wheel doesn’t need to be reinvented.
Wow. I hope Outlook just goes away someday, after people stop using it. That’ll never happen though, but Microsoft is pushing things that direction by doing crap like this.