New Outlook Won't Use IE To Render HTML

loconet writes to tell us about a little surprise coming in Outlook 2007: it will render HTML email using the MS Word engine, dropping the use of IE for this purpose. This represents a body-check to the movement towards Web standards. Whatever you think about HTML email, lots of it gets generated, and those generating it won't be able to use CSS any more, and may stop pushing for more widespread standards support. The announcement was made on MSDN. From the Campaign Monitor post: "Imagine for a second that the new version of IE7 killed off the majority of CSS support and only allowed table based layouts. The web design world would be up in arms! Well, that's exactly what the new version of Outlook does to email designers."

Comments

Re:email designers?

[John Courtland]

The place I work for started releasing HTML emails highlighting deals for products, new features, and what not a few months ago, and the response has been nothing but positive. People like the pretty design and they reacted well to it. Not everyone is a minimalist who just wants just plain text, a lot of people want a whole dolled-up presentation.