MindComet

Outlook 2007 Can Now Render Background Images

For the past 3 years, designers and marketers alike have been trained to avoid implementing background images into their email’s designs. This was due to Outlook 2007’s inability to display such images. We all just kinda accepted Outlook’s faults and our collective emails designs were held back. But, alas, we will be deprived no more!

It has recently been discovered by a user of CampaignMonitor that background images can indeed display in Outlook 2007! But not without some hacking, of course.

First you have to add xmlns:v=“urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml” to your html tag.

Secondly, within your style tag, add the following selector:

v\:* {
  behavior: url(#default#VML);
  display:inline-block;

Then, within your table cell, you must add:

<td width="600" height="402" valign="top" bgcolor="#000000" background="images/yourimage.gif">
  <!—[if gte mso 9]>
  <v:image id="image" style='position:absolute; height:402px; width:600px;top:0;left:0;border:0;z-index:1;' src="images/yourimage.gif"/>
  <v:shape id="text" style='position:absolute; height:402px; width:600px;top:0;left:0;border:0;z-index:2;'>
  <![endif]—>
  <p align="center" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color:#ffffff; font-size:18px;">This is the text in front of the background image.</p>

<!—[if gte mso 9]>
  </v:shape>
  <![endif]—>

Believe it or not, the combination of the steps above allows for background images to render in Outlook 2007. Try it out yourself. I'll be testing this all day today, if I come up with any issues, I'll be sure to update this post. If you find anything, please share them and comment below or on the original thread at Campaign Monitor.

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Posted by Bryan Quilty on Jul. 15, 2010

Outlook 2010 - The Inevitable Letdown

Apparently the fixoutlook.org campaign was “too little, too late”. When the campaign hit it’s stride and Microsoft took notice, they had unfortunately already begun developing the next version of Outlook: Outlook 2010. And with the development of their new email client comes the same glaring issue all email marketers find so abhorrent: using the Word engine to display their emails.

Dave Grenier from CampaignMonitor has been pivotal in putting this on Microsoft’s radar in the first place. He’s had direct correspondence with Microsoft’s development team for some time now and reported the following from them:

“At this point, our plans for email authoring and rendering in Outlook 2010 are unchanged. However, I can tell you that this is a significant topic of discussion as we plan our business going forward, and something we will definitely be thinking about for future releases of Outlook.“

The highly-regarded testing service, Litmus, had access to test the Beta version of Outlook 2010 and have posted their results here. Needless to say, they’re not surprising and are more or less in-line with what we’ve come to expect from Outlook.

So hopefully by 2013, Microsoft will release another email client—this time using a significantly better rendering engine thus allowing for elements such as background images to render correctly… Emphasis on “hopefully”.

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Posted by Bryan Quilty on Mar. 30, 2010

Body Background Images Can Add Depth To Your Email

If you’ve followed this blog for the past couple of years, you know that I’m a big proponent for the removal of background images in email design. This is all due to the popularity of unsupported clients such as Outlook ‘07 and even Gmail to a certain extent. Although, sometimes a series of events will take place that will lead you to change your whole perspective on things.

In this case, that perspective-altering event was visiting Dylan Boyd’s killer Email Wars blog. The post that really piqued my interest included a screenshot of a BEEEAUTIFUL email from Columbia. The forest-landscape background totally threw me for a loop. As far as background images go, they usually consist of a gradient or repeating image, but rarely do I ever see photo-realisitc backgrounds in the bodies of emails. It caught my attention to say the least.

I then remembered that the geniuses at CampaignMonitor discovered a method of getting background images to display in the body of an email. So even this email could be displayed as intended in Outlook ‘07. Win.

I think this should be an example for creative online marketing and advertising departments to stretch their email designs out a bit. Try incorporating big, sweeping background images. I think most B2C email campaigns could benefit from at least testing this.

Have you seen any other brands using photo-realistic background images in the body of their emails? Provide examples in the comments.

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Posted by Bryan Quilty on Oct. 07, 2009