Outlook remains the same
Let’s start with information that you probably comes as no surprise: Outlook 2010 does not improve the HTML or CSS rendering situation in any way. It comes down to Microsoft’s continuing use of the MS Word rendering engine, which has been carried through from Outlook 2007.
If you’ve wondered why the Email Standards Project has gone so quiet, it is because unfortunately we’ve not had a lot of news. However, we’re still here, and we’re still working on ways to improve the capabilities of email clients in the long term.
We want to say thank you to everyone who has taken part so far, whether by tweeting or blogging or taking part in our Gmail Grimace or Fix Outlook campaigns.
What’s next?
Later this year we will be rerunning all of our email client tests, and possibly expanding them out to other email clients. Remember, this is about improving the situation for most designers, and that means concentrating on the mass market email tools which give us the most trouble. So while it is great to know that the latest free web mail client renders well, it isn’t really our role to test it.
We definitely appreciate your feedback though - what are the capabilities most troublesome and in which email clients are you running into the most problems? One piece of good news for designers is that mobile email clients are becoming more popular and the rendering we’ve seen so far has been pretty good. Webkit based email readers are by nature much easier to work with than traditional desktop engines.
In the corporate world Outlook still dominates, and that’s going to be true for quite some time yet. We’re not giving up on improving the next version of Outlook, and we’ll be asking for your help again in the future. Thanks for being part of this project!
The email standards project sounds good, I agree there should be a set of standards with emails. HTML emails have a lot of benefits, but used in the wrong way it can be a recipe for disaster.
Welcome back! We support you guys and what you’re doing is a great thing. I just grabbed Outlook 2010 and am looking forward to hearing your take on the changes (if any) that have been implemented.
Could you assume that most people use HTML emails over plain text these days? Also on another note, can phones see html emails as well or is it only plain text? Just curious. Thanks!
Couldn’t they do something similar to how IE8 handles the standards compliancy? If a full DOCTYPE is included in the HTML email then IE rendering is used in standards mode, else it reverts to the Word rendering and keeps all those Office people happy. Seems like an easy fix to me for Microsoft and backwards compatibility.
I think your right Luke. But I fear that the dinosaurs within Microsoft’s office team are going with the wager that HTML is to dangerous. In my opinion, if they do hold such an opinion, Its a bad one. The same argument could be said about the web. Another point to make is that it is not the responsibility of Microsoft to prevent the boo-boos of web developers. That kind of thinking is what made web standards so terrible in the early to mid 90’s.
This project sounds good & I also agree that HTML emails have a lot of benefits, but used in the wrong way hence we should very careful while using it.
@Robert: I assume they would disable stuff like scripts and plugins etc. to meet security requirements. At least they could run all the CSS if the DOCTYPE is present. Maybe something will happen once IE9 is out with all the wonderful CSS3 support and within the next Office suite. I doubt this would be resolved before then. Office 2010 SP1 would be nice for a fix but I don’t think they add new features in service pack releases.
there is no change in outlook from starting .. only little is changed
@WiiController the same exact point can be said for web pages, however if browser manufacturers started removing or watering down functionality, everyone would be upset and confused. I prepose that when people think about emails, they think about it in the same terms as a web document and not a different form.
@Luke I love the idea of using the doctype. Its the logical way of handling it. Now if only the dinosaurs in the office team would stop thinking of emails as separate from the web.
123
sdsad
The problem with all microsoft products is they are too dominant so they have sat back and stopped thinking about the customers. I work in the debt solutions industry and we want out of outlook but there are no alternatives.
I think it was a nice article.
I have read most of the comments and I agree with most Outlook 10 and I have spoken to people who have it and it is not much different to outlook 2007 which I use for my online gifts e-mail and I really do not think the price they want for it so I think Microsoft should look at their prices it’s so expensive to purchase their products.
James
Online UK Gifts