Email images not lining up out look 2007/10 vs everything else - html

I've checked out a few posts, and tried them. Didn't work. This may become a decision and tell clients this is what it is, but I don't want to come to that.
So after testing with Litmus, my main issue is the borders(left and right) vs the top and bottom image not lining up correctly on outbook 2007/10 vs everything else.
<body>
<style type="text/css">
body{
color:#415b7c;
font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;
font-size:12px;
padding:0;
margin:0;
}
table {border-collapse: collapse;}
</style>
<table width="100%" bgcolor="#ffffff">
<tr>
<td><!-- header -->
<table width="600" align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
<tr valign="bottom">
<td>
<table width="600" align="left" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse:collapse;">
<tr><td>
<img src="http://wearehmc.com/emailTemp/VSAC/top.png" width="600" style="display:block">
</td></tr>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td>
<table width="600" align="left" bgcolor="#ffffff" style="border-left-style:solid; border-left-color:#3d5b83; border-left-width:2px; border-right-style:solid; border-right-color:#3d5b83; border-right-width:2px; border-collapse: collapse; ">
<tr>
<td>
client log
</td>
<td>
<table cellpadding="10" style="color:#576276;">
<tr>
<td>
<p style="font-weight:bold">
Text
</p>
<p>
text
</p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
<td>
client logo
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<table width="600" align="left" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
<tr>
<td style="color:#ffffff; font-size:22px; font-weight:500; line-height:30px">
<table width="600" align="left" bgcolor="#659acf" cellpadding="20" style="border-left-style:solid; border-collapse: collapse; border-left-color:#3d5b83; border-left-width:2px; border-right-style:solid; border-right-color:#3d5b83; border-right-width:2px; border-collapse:collapse;">
<tr>
<td style="color:#ffffff; font-size:24px; ">
text
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<table width="600" align="left" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
<tr><td>
<img src="http://wearehmc.com/emailTemp/VSAC/bottom.png" width="600" style="display:block">
</td></tr>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
</tr></table>
I've taken out client copy and logos.
As I've said it may come down to a decision of not letting it line up in outlook 2007/10, while letting it work in others.
So if anyone has any suggestions, it would be most helpful.

For outlook (And gmail) You need to specify border="0" on your images.
<img src="/" width="" height="" alt="" border="0" style="display:block">
This should be on every image you use in your email, even spacers. (In fact, especially on spacers, since those will create unwanted empty space without any content)
Also, Outlook has trouble rendering cell-padding and spacing (2007 and 2010 both use microsoft WORD as their rendering engine, I'll let you imagine how great that is to render html-emails).
So you should really be using nested tables instead of cell-padding, with spacer images to create the inner spaces of your sections.
Oh, and I see that all your styling is not inline. This will cause problems with your html-email stability. (gmail will strip every styling that is not inline, as well as the #000000 color on links (use #000001 instead)).
Oh also. Border styles and colors. Those will not display properly everywhere. The solution is again nested tables. With bgcolor and 1 / 2px width spacers to give the illusion of borders.
Hope this all helps. (I know this sounds like a lot of errors in your html-email, but once you get the hang of coding for the worst possible mail clients in mind, it'll become second nature! ;) )

Related

Why is Outlook substracting 1px from img?

I am having a outlook html email nightmare here.. Basically there is one table and one image on the top and content on the bottom.:
The image is always substracting 1px so it is never 100% with the table. Anyone knows a solution?
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style=
"margin-left:2px;padding:0px; width:846px; background-color:#000">
<tr>
<td>
<div style="font-size: 0px;"><img border="0" src=
"img/header1.jpg" style=
"display:block;align:bottom;border:none;padding:0; width:846px;"></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Blah.. Content</td>
</tr>
</table>
I'm pretty sure this is from outlook's issue with border-collapse. Try this:
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%" style="border-collapse:collapse; padding:0; margin:0px;">
<tr valign="top">
<td align="left" valign="top">
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/640/300" width="640" height="300" alt="" style="display:block;" border="0" />
</td>
</tr>
</table>
Use the img tag for images.
Outlook uses Word for rendering HTML markup. You can read more about that in the following series of articles:
Word 2007 HTML and CSS Rendering Capabilities in Outlook 2007 (Part 1 of 2)
Word 2007 HTML and CSS Rendering Capabilities in Outlook 2007 (Part 2 of 2)

Valign not working in Outlook HTML Emails

So I've been wrangling all week with a newsletter redesign for my company, tweaking the html to make it display semi-consistently across email clients. I've made good use of www.litmus.com for much of this. This is the last bug remaining and it continues to elude me. We have a horizontal navbar across the top. Here's a stripped down version with only one <td>, normally there are 5 of them:
<table width="100%" border="0" align="right" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" valign="middle">
<tr valign="middle">
<td valign="middle" align="center" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Arial, sans-serif; font-size:12px; line-height: 200%; background-color:#b2382a; color: #FFFFFF; text-transform:uppercase;" >
<a target="_blank" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Arial, sans-serif; font-size:12px; line-height: 200%; background-color:#b2382a; color: #FFFFFF; text-transform:uppercase; text-decoration:none; vertical-align: middle;" href="LinkURLHere">
<span style="color:#FFFFFF; vertical-align: middle;">Link Text Here</span>
</a>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
As you can see, inline styles up the wazoo. It displays fine on all of the litmus tests except for Outlook 2002, 2007 and 2013, in which valign="middle" gets ignored and the link text gets pushed to the top like this: http://i.imgur.com/a48ObB8.jpg
Several sources, both here and elsewhere, suggest that valign works in outlook, but I've tried the valign="middle" attribute on every tag I can think of, and several css vertical-align: middle;s as well. Is this no longer true? And if so, is there a work around of some sort?
I think the issue is the line-height you are setting. I found that when the line-height is equal to the td height, valign=middle will not work properly in outlook.
The following will not middle-align the text:
<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%" border="0" align="right">
<tr>
<td align="center" valign="middle" bgcolor="#b2112a" height="48" style="font-size:20px; line-height:48px;">
Link Text Here
</td>
</tr>
</table>
THIS WILL:
<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%" border="0" align="right">
<tr>
<td align="center" valign="middle" bgcolor="#b2112a" height="48" style="font-size:20px; line-height:24px;">
Link Text Here
</td>
</tr>
</table>
Valign always worked for me, but I think for it to work in Outlook 2007 you have to set the height of your <td>. This always worked for me:
<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%" border="0" align="right">
<tr>
<td align="center" valign="middle" bgcolor="#b2382a" height="35">
<span style="color:#FFFFFF;
font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Arial, sans-serif;
font-size:12px;
text-transform:uppercase;">
Link Text Here
</span>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
Short answer: Use padding-top, and padding-bottom with a negative value.
Long answer: If you want to write a cross-compatible email don't use valign at all. The problem you're having is stemming from somewhere else because by default the text should be displaying vertically centered in the cell.
Get your code back to a point where it's defaulting to the center and wherever you need something different use nested tables, cellpadding, margin, and padding to get the placement you're looking for.
I have this:
<table width="600" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
<tr>
<td width="600" valign="middle">
Content
</td>
</tr>
</table>
This works on most of email clients, but not on Outlook version greater than 2010. To make it work correctly just add a conditional comment with a spacer like this:
<table width="600" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
<!-- In this case is a spacer of 40px -->
<!--[if (gt mso 14)]>
<tr>
<td>
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
<tr>
<td style="font-size: 40px; line-height: 40px;" bgcolor="#ffffff" width="100%" height="40" valign="top">
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
<![endif]-->
<tr>
<td width="600" valign="middle">
Content
</td>
</tr>
</table>
This is because of the align="right" set on the first table. Removing this should fix the issue. Other option is to manually add spacing before the first <tr>.
<tr><td height="30> </td></tr>

Outlook HTML email - vertical gaps in image slices

So, typical question. I have searched a boatload here. Tried everything suggested. Nutin'
So Maybe to ask the question fresh.
I am having some verical gaps in Outlook 2013 (and 2007 too i think) between my image slices. (Also my text is extending further than it is set as)
Knowing that display:block doesn't really work for Outlook. I've tried wrapping in spans and giving the span a display:block
I'm at a loss. I'm hoping someone can answer this one easily. Grrrrr!!!! Outlook! Why must you be so popular?
http://pastebin.com/ESfEmWer
http://tinypic.com/r/2gtdhu1/6
Don't go for
display: [anything]
if you wish to include Outlook 2007. See http://www.xequte.com/support/maillistking/css_in_emails.html for reference of which CSS styles you can use and which you better don't.
Don't use any whitespaces trailing
<td>
and don't use any whitespaces preceding
</td>
And you should also avoid
<style>...</style>
as this will most likely will be striped away completely. Always go for inline-styles. And I know that this is not part of a real answer, but just as a hint: If you are doing HTML newsletters make them as if you were doing them for Internet Explorer 4. E-Mail clients like Outlook use the most ridiculous CSS-renderer you can imagine. Even Internet Explorer 5 is more sophisticated in rendering CSS then modern Outlooks.
Oh, and by the way: If there is a chance that the recipients of your newsletter might read them online in hotmail, gmx or gmail then you should check them, too. You will stand in awe and wonder how those online clients handle your code and what they inject.
You have a ton of whitespace causing the gap:
<a href="mms://a1783.v167326.c16732.g.vm.akamaistream.net/7/1783/16732/0/QPS.Onstreammedia.com/origin/jjready2/%5bInbox%5d/Talent%20Management/CDF%201-18_WMV.wmv">
<img style="display:block" src="http://emaniocreative.com/eblasts/3_26_2013/Message-from-Dominic-&-Louise.jpg" width="360" height="257" border="0" alt="Message from Dominic & Louise - Video"></a>
Try taking the whitespace out.. also display:block doesn't work like display:inline-block (the later you probably want instead) You cannot add formatting such as margin or padding to SPAN. I would keep what you have as IMG and DIV elements, however if you are using a TABLE you may want the border-collapse:collapse; property set.
Also to note, if you are using display:inline-block you will want to take out ALL whitespace between your elements:
<tr>...</tr><tr>...</tr>
Instead of what you have currently:
<tr>
...
</tr>
<tr>
...
</tr>
You have way too many colspans, which could cause problems. You should be nesting your tables instead.
I've created hundreds of emails and never had any issues with whitespace caused by line-returns in email code. (Outlook 2007 is the first thing I check my emails in)
It is always good practice to use display:block; and also keep images in their own <td> by themselves.
Try something like this instead:
<html>
<head>
<title>Ambassador Newsletter</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<style>img {display:block}</style>
</head>
<!--REPLACE the following text with the path to the images on your server http://emaniocreative.com/eblasts/3_26_2013/ -->
<body style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: #FFFFFF;" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><table bgcolor="#ebebeb" width="100%" border="0" align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td><table width="600" border="0" align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td valign="top" style="padding-top:30px; padding-bottom:30px;">
<table id="Table_01" width="650" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" bgcolor="#ffffff" style="border-collapse: collapse;">
<tr>
<td>
<!-- NEST A TABLE INSTEAD-->
<table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" bgcolor="#770000">
<tr>
<td style="padding:20px;">
header
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<!-- /NEST-->
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<!-- NEST A TABLE INSTEAD-->
<table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
<tr>
<td style="padding:20px;">
Body section 1
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="padding:20px;">
Body section 2
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<!-- /NEST-->
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</td></tr></table></td></tr></table></body></html>
In my example I used padding instead of cells for spacing.
You never need a blank spacer image. Use a in an empty cell instead if you prefer not to use padding:
<table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" bgcolor="#770000">
<tr>
<td height="20" colspan="3">
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="20">
</td>
<td width="610">
header
</td>
<td width="20">
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td height="20" colspan="3">
</td>
</tr>
</table>
On a side note, there is an unavoidable issue with vertical separation when forwarding from Outlook to Gmail for example, (courtesy of mso.normal p tags added) but for the initial recipient there are no problems.

HTML Email not displaying correctly in Outlook 2007

After a lot of time I put into researching. I still can't find an answer.
I have a HTML that is showing the wrong width in my tables. Here is a link to the html email: https://tagwebstore.com/email/tag-email-10percentmore.html and here is a screenshot of how it looks in Outlook 2007:
The main problem is the bottom area. The link of the html email displays it correctly. I have no idea what else to do from here. Here is my code for the bottom part I am having trouble with:
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" width="625" align="center" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<tr>
<td height="23" colspan="3" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="25"> </td>
<td><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0">
<tr>
<td><img src="https://www.tagwebstore.com/email/testimonial-top.png" width="573" height="36" style="display:block;" /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td bgcolor="#f0d7c1" width="573"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" width="573">
<tr>
<td width="28"></td>
<td style="font-size:11px; line-height:18px; color:#000000; font-style:italic; font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" width="517"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0">
<tr>
<td style="font-size:11px; line-height:18px; color:#000000; font-style:italic; font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">We’ve been using TAG for a while and we love TAG – we love the products. When we bring the products to Oklahoma City, nobody else has the products. It’s a big plus here for our market area. I think it would be a great thing for people to get online and see what TAG can do for them.</td>
</tr>
<tr align="right">
<td height="40" valign="bottom" style="font-size:11px; line-height:18px; color:#000000; font-style:normal; font-weight:bold; font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Sirron Brown, Marketing Director<br />
Excell Home Care and Hospice, Oklahoma</td>
</tr>
</table></td>
<td width="28"></td>
</tr>
</table></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><img src="https://www.tagwebstore.com/email/testimonial-bottom.png" width="573" height="57" /></td>
</tr>
</table></td>
<td width="25"> </td>
</tr>
</table>
<!--Testimonial End-->
<!--Footer-->
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" width="625" align="center" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<tr>
<td colspan="3" height="20"> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="25"> </td>
<td width="575"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0">
<tr>
<td align="left" valign="middle" width="295" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size:12px;">info#tagwebstore.com | 866.232.6477</td>
<td width="178" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size:12px;" valign="middle" align="right">Follow us on Twitter & YouTube</td>
<td valign="middle" width="102"><img src="https://www.tagwebstore.com/email/twitter.png" width="49" height="17" border="0" /><img src="https://www.tagwebstore.com/email/youtube.png" width="53" height="21" border="0" /></td>
</tr>
</table></td>
<td width="25"> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="3" height="20"> </td>
</tr>
</table>
<!--Footer End-->
The width of the containing table is suppose to be 625px. Any help is appreciated.
oh the joy of html emails
There are many rules you have to obey when dealing with HTML-based email, especially when you have exacting clients and pixel-perfect designs, and I am quite glad that I haven't had to work on such a project for at least two years now... The main reason for my utter dislike of the practice is primarily down to two email-clients. The first and all time worst being Lotus Notes 6.5.4 (to be fair it's over 10 years old now.. but still!), and the all time second worst(s), they're not even the best at being bad, Outlook 2007 and 2010!
Whoever thought it would be a good idea to use the Microsoft Word WYSIWYG HTML Engine to render HTML Emails in Outlook 2007 and 2010, must have been mad, lazy, lost or ever-so-slightly confused (delete as appropriate). It causes no end of rendering problems for developers, usually with random and inexplicable sizing calculations or padding problems.
Taken from my blog http://blog.pebbl.co.uk/2011/06/collapsible-html-email-and-outlook.html
Simply put, I do not envy you :)
I found the best way to help me out with my email troubles was to follow the following rules:
Never use colspans or rowspans.
Always set correct dimensions for your tables and cells.
Use spacer gifs rather than &nbps;.
Always specify correct image sizes and never scale images up or down.
Always add style="display:block;" to images.
Avoid using divs.
If you wish to colour links, put the styling on a span as a child inside the a tag.
Don't use italics.
Don't use BRs for layout, always use tables.
Use BRs in Text, not Ps (to avoid stange margin problems and paragraphing being completely ignored).
Because the sheer number of emails I used to get through ended up being ridiculous, I developed a script to help me with the work of checking dimensions and other possible pitfalls. If you're interested in using it you can find it here:
http://pastie.org/6250834
The script can be added as a usual script tag or enabled using GreaseMonkey or something similar (it was designed to work with Firefox but I see no reason why it shouldn't work elsewhere). Due to the way I used to build my emails, it will only enable itself if either the following conditions are met:
There is an outer wrapping table that has width="100%" set, used to centre the actual email content.
or... there is an outer element (a table or div) that has the id="base".
I've passed your HTML through it and the image below is the resulting output, it makes more sense when you have the actual page because you can hover over each bordered item and it will give you a rough idea of what the problem is (either that or you can just inspect the element directly with Firebug or similar).
So from inspecting the above it seems you have a few problems that need to be fixed, I'd say the most important ones are to get rid of rowspans and colspans (these always cause problems in Outlook) and to make sure all your dimensions tally correctly. Once you've fixed these issues you might see a considerable improvement, but then again you might not, there are no certainties in the hazardous life of HTML email building...
Hope it helps.
Try this for your top table:
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" width="625" align="center" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<tr>
<td height="23" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="25"> </td>
<td width="575">
<table width="100%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0">
<tr>
<td>
<img src="https://www.tagwebstore.com/email/testimonial-top.png" width="575" height="36" style="display:block;" />
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td bgcolor="#f0d7c1" width="575">
<table width="100%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0">
<tr>
<td width="28">
</td>
<td width="519" style="font-size:11px; line-height:18px; color:#000000; font-style:italic; font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">
<table width="100%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0">
<tr>
<td style="font-size:11px; line-height:18px; color:#000000; font-style:italic; font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">We’ve been using TAG for a while and we love TAG – we love the products. When we bring the products to Oklahoma City, nobody else has the products. It’s a big plus here for our market area. I think it would be a great thing for people to get online and see what TAG can do for them.
</td>
</tr>
<tr align="right">
<td valign="bottom" style="font-size:11px; line-height:18px; color:#000000; font-style:normal; font-weight:bold; font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Sirron Brown, Marketing Director<br />
Excell Home Care and Hospice, Oklahoma</td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
<td width="28">
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<img src="https://www.tagwebstore.com/email/testimonial-bottom.png" width="575" height="57" style="display:block;" />
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
<td width="25"> </td>
</tr>
</table>
and this for your bottom:
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" width="625" align="center" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<tr>
<td colspan="3" height="20"> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="25"> </td>
<td width="575">
<table width="100%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0">
<tr>
<td align="left" valign="middle" width="280" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size:12px;">
info#tagwebstore.com | 866.232.6477
</td>
<td width="193" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size:12px;" valign="middle" align="right">
Follow us on Twitter & YouTube
</td>
<td valign="middle" width="49">
<img src="https://www.tagwebstore.com/email/twitter.png" width="49" height="17" border="0" style="display:block;" />
</td>
<td valign="middle" width="53">
<img src="https://www.tagwebstore.com/email/youtube.png" width="53" height="21" border="0" style="display:block;" />
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
<td width="25"> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="3" height="20"> </td>
</tr>
</table>
Overall it was coded really well, just changed a few small things, not saying each was a must have, but IF it works you can reverse engineer the changes to find out what busted it. I haven't tested it, so hopefully this works...

Element not moving on resizing page

I am placing a heading/title on a HTML page using following code:
<table width="100%" height="55px" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
<tr>
<td style="height:10px">
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width:105px;"></td>
<td align="left" style="padding-right:10px;padding-left:10px">
<div style="font-family:quicksand;font-size: 28px; color:##bdbdc0;z- index:1000000;position:relative;">
De Graef <font size="2">Landelijk & Sfeervol Wonen</font>
</div>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
Other content is in other tables.
When i zoom in or zoom out, or simply change resolution, this text is not moving it's position in sync with the other page elements.
Any ideas?
Change your header row to this :
<tr>
<td align="center" style="font-family:quicksand;font-size: 28px; color:##bdbdc0;margin-left:-50px;background-color:##4D4946;">
<table width="956" border="0" height="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" style="background-color:##4D4946;">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="background-color:##4D4946;">
<br>
<br>
<img style="background-color:##4D4946;" src="images/logonew.png">
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
I'm helping you here but should seriously consider rewriting all of it in a clean and modern way, most of your code is deprecated :
Use appropriate HTML markup for segmenting your document
Use <table> only when then you need an actual table
Use separate CSS files for keeping your markup clean
Read the W3C recommendations about all of this