Re: [PHP] HTML & plain text in Outlook 2007

On Fri, 2010-02-12 at 19:03 -0600, Skip Evans wrote:

> Hey Guys,
> 
> Thanks for all the info on this. Sorry for the late reply, but 
> I got sidetracked writing the module that will send out all 
> these nasty emails.
> 
> I do have the text going on top, and I think I said, looks 
> perfect in Evolution and Thunderbird in both text and HTML.
> 
> I also read about MS ripping out the IE renderer and going 
> back in time basically.
> 
> I thought the solution of converting a Word document into HTML 
> with open office is interesting. I'll run that by the client 
> and test it out.
> 
> Bottom line is, HTML is just a total pain, and yes, the email 
> the client created in HTML using the most update to date CSS 
> and HTML!
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Skip
> 
> Robert Cummings wrote:
> > Ashley Sheridan wrote:
> >> On Thu, 2010-02-04 at 13:44 -0500, Robert Cummings wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> What about signing yourself up to some newsletters to see how they do
> >>>> it?
> >>>>
> >>>> Looking at the ones I get from Facebook as an example, they use the
> >>>> boundary codes you mentioned, and I can't see anything particularly
> >>>> special that's been added. What order are you sending the two message
> >>>> parts by the way? I think the traditional way is to send the plain/text
> >>>> part first, so that UA's that don't understand or support multipart
> >>>> messages only use the first one. As you mentioned that you're seeing
> >>>> HTML code at the top, I'd hazard a guess that you're sending the HTML
> >>>> first?
> >>> The problem is most likely NOT his email structure, but the fact that 
> >>> Microsoft in all their lock-in, make things difficult, non standard, 
> >>> monopolistic philosophy chose to switch out the IE HTML renderer 
> >>> (which was getting pretty decent with IE7 and IE8) with the Office 
> >>> HTML renderer... so now basic things like CSS padding of something as 
> >>> simple as a <p> tag is not possible. You now need to use margins 
> >>> instead. The full list of supported attributes / CSS can be found here:
> >>>
> >>>      http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa338201.aspx
> >>>
> >>> Obviously creating HTML emails was getting too easy (like it is with 
> >>> Thunderbird). Of course... I guess it could be as bad as Google 
> >>> stripping out the stylesheets entirely when viewing HTML content 
> >>> which forces you to put the styles on the tags themselves.
> >>>
> >>> ... actually I'm not sure what's worse... at least you can use 
> >>> standard styles with Google's gmail. Either way... making nice 
> >>> looking HTML emails that work across Outlook, Thunderbird, Gmail, 
> >>> Yahoo, and Hotmail is a pain in the ass.
> >>>
> >>> Cheers,
> >>> Rob.
> >>
> >>
> >> If he's getting HTML output at the top of the email, I would think that
> >> did suggest that MS Word didn't like the structure. Making HTML emails
> >> is now such a difficult job, as the email clients rendering engines tend
> >> to not get updated as often as browsers, and there doesn't seem to be
> >> any effort in bringing the rendering of the email clients together.
> >>
> >> Whenever I create these emails I try to make sure I try no to get too
> >> creative in the design, and use not only CSS styles, but properties of
> >> the HTML tags themselves. It means I end up writing the CSS essentially
> >> twice and backing it up with old deprecated HTML attributes, but it
> >> usually does the trick.
> >>
> >> Is there any effort by some standards group that email clients could
> >> benefit from?
> > 
> > I think I skipped over some relevant information in the original post :)
> > 
> > Still... as you've said... email HTML sucks... and MS made it worse.
> > 
> > Cheers,
> > Rob.
> 
> -- 
> ====================================
> Skip Evans
> PenguinSites.com, LLC
> 503 S Baldwin St, #1
> Madison WI 53703
> 608.250.2720
> http://penguinsites.com
> ------------------------------------
> Those of you who believe in
> telekinesis, raise my hand.
>   -- Kurt Vonnegut
> 


That last reason could be why your email is failing! HTML email is the
one place where it is actually better to code "the old way" with tables
for markup, <font> tags, and very little (if any) CSS. If you do use any
CSS, it's best left inline as well, as some email clients strip out
anything within the <head> tags of your email.

Thanks,
Ash
http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk