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Microsoft Takes Email Design Back Five Years

campaignmonitor.com — This is incredible - must read...

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  • chrisirmo, on 10/12/2007, -39/+114This is absolutely amazing. Despite the many other problems that Outlook has, I could always count on it to be one of the few email clients to consistently render CSS. Why would Microsoft throw that completely out the window?

    I design newsletters for a B2B client, where more than 90% of the readers use Outlook and have been seeing everything just as it was designed. Now, I and other designers must learn to use those hated tables all over again -- just when we thought it was finally safe to rid our brains of that useless information -- just to appease one of Bill Gates' whims.

    The screenshots included in this article prove just how much of a step backwards we're taking.
    • Shirk, on 10/12/2007, -79/+57Glad that I haven't used Outlook since the 90's.
    • radicaldementia, on 10/12/2007, -26/+120This really makes me angry. I would love to just say to hell with MS, but you can't do that because so many people use Outlook. You can try to convince them to move to something like Thunderbird, but most won't. The average email user has no idea what CSS or any of this means, and they're just gonna think you aren't good enough to make email work in Outlook.

      I'm usually not a MS basher, but I really hate that helpless feeling that there's nothing we can do about it.
    • foobar5892, on 10/12/2007, -53/+25Outlook who?
    • Burmask, on 10/12/2007, -15/+28@radicaldementia - Try a smith and wesson
    • barneytoe, on 10/12/2007, -6/+79As bad as Outlook is, I thanked the Lord the day I was able to say goodbye to Lotus Notes. Save the "but it's powerful, but it's a DB, blah blah" comments please. It's a parasite that weaves its tentacles throughout the back office and becomes impossible to remove.
    • 1021, on 10/12/2007, -14/+23@shrik
      so you haven't been back in serious IT environment since the 2000 downtrend? Outlook is one of the most prevalent peice of software I see people use at work.
    • ilyag, on 10/12/2007, -17/+245E-mail was never meant to be used as a web browser replacement. As much as I think Microsoft are fools for doing this, so are the newsletter designers who've been making fully-functional websites and sending them out as is.

      If you want your "clients" to read a website, include a link in your e-mail instructing them to go to said website using a web browser, not forcing them to load it inside their inbox.

      In my experience, the #1 reason people in the work place rely on Outlook so exclusively is because they can easily send Word documents and Excell spreadsheets inside the e-mail, thus merging their "office" productivity in a Windows environment. I have never seen people rely on Outlook to send each other full-blown websites masquerading as e-mail.
    • brstilson, on 10/12/2007, -22/+15Too bad this won't be enough to make people switch to something like Groupwise. Exchange servers are nothing but problems anyway.
    • uownedge, on 10/12/2007, -27/+16Wonderful. This means that all of the news letters my company has made for schools and businesses will have to be completely rebuilt to work with Outlook.

      I usually like to refer to Outlook as "Lookout!"...I guess I've been spot on with that one.
    • roosterjm2k2, on 10/12/2007, -19/+257Actually, I like this! I welcome it.

      I've grown tired of seeing an entire freaking website layout in my email...Send the info you need to convey, or get out.

      99.9% usefull emails sent are person to person...all the fancy crap is majority spam/junk anyways...even newsletters...they overdo it...
    • bias, on 10/12/2007, -35/+115You people are the one who wanted to get IE out of Windows, so STOP ***** CRYING, who cares about HTML Emails!?
    • doodlebumm, on 10/12/2007, -11/+19@1021

      I have only recently had to start to use Outlook, because I had to switch to a Windows desktop from Linux (where I could still do company calendering without Outlook). The only reason I use it is for the company calendaring. Otherwise I'd never have started using Outlook. It is a sucking piece of crap IMO. Plenty of better alternatives. Oh, yeah there is one other reason for using Outlook, and that is the public folders for getting company forms, etc.
    • 10001110101, on 10/12/2007, -6/+66@roosterjim & ilyak: Bravo! You hit the nail on the head. I consistently set Outlook to send emails as plain text. If a newsletter has so much rich content that it needs a web broswer to render it, then send a link to the content and LET IT BE RENDERED IN A BROWSER!

      I've been using Outlook 2007 since mid-December, and I love it. Best release to date. Having RSS feeds show up like emails is wicked.

      However, the one thing that really pisses me off is they've removed the ability to cancel a meeting without sending a notification. That is, when you cancel a meeting you either have to "Send Cancellation" or "Discard Changes". Fooey to that :(
    • qbproger, on 10/12/2007, -19/+2It seems like a move like this would open up a whole new batch of security problems. Seems like a bad idea, but hey... people will buy it, they will make profits... cycle never ends.
    • Pile, on 10/12/2007, -10/+93I'm against HTML e-mail anyway. If you want multimedia crap, you put a web address in the e-mail. E-mail is for words. When you put images and other stuff (aside from attachments) you create security and privacy/tracking issues.
    • dpcamp, on 10/12/2007, -19/+5Thats odd. I'm using Outlook 2007 and can view HTML emails with no problems.
    • alstewart73, on 10/12/2007, -7/+23There simply isn't enough room on the Interweb for all this fancy mail. The amount of information flying around is already staggering enough (maybe as much as a truckfull!) without image-rich mailshots sent to thousands of people essentially saying "remember us? we have stock. or information. come visit, buy, read.", when they were probably going to anyway.

      Having said that, to use Word to render HTML surely is the decision of an asshat.

    • joeyjojo, on 10/12/2007, -10/+81THIS IS A GOOD THING!

      HTML email is an annoyance I can live without. This is a feature MS has created and I am thrilled about it.

      HTML belongs in a web browser. Not my email.
    • gbacci, on 10/12/2007, -15/+3Yet again, proves how laughable saying CSS is the true "standard" really is. There's no shame in still doing table layouts, at least not until the tech world actually decides to *support* CSS as the standard. Amazing.
    • theonlyvlad, on 10/12/2007, -5/+60thank god! The amount of full HTML emails (CSS and fancy junk) that I want to read is... 0. They're mostly ***** newsletters from retailers, whose meaning I can deduct without the use of their images and formatting.

      p.s. - i don't understand why the writer is as scared/excited over this like it's an apocalypse. Call me when Microsoft starts serving human flesh at company luncheons. That would be a story.
    • DeleteForever, on 10/12/2007, -4/+83I for one welcome our new plain text overlords.
    • etruscan, on 10/12/2007, -2/+33Who sends, or receives HTML based emails, anyways? I'll tell you who... marketing. Personally I never send, nor read emails that use any of the features crippled by Outlook 2007. In a corporate environment that wouldn't change, at least in none I've been a part of. Keep the email in text form. An image, if you must... but leave the full HTML pages on the web, not in email.
    • dezmd, on 10/12/2007, -2/+25God forbid you spammers arent able to hide your counters and mask the spam with css hacks anymore.

      Cheers.

      PS- Its a terrible choice from MS, but not because of the rendering issues, because of the resource usage of winword editors from within Outlook. If you run a Citrix or Terminal server farm, you know EXACTLY what I'm talking about. Nothing works better to bring a monster 4 way xeon with 4gb ram to a crawl than 20 people all opening new emails to send in outlook with word configured as the default editor.
    • bemenaker, on 10/12/2007, -3/+23WOOOHOOOO Thank you!!!! Maybe this will help stop all the bullsh!t html email I get. I turn off html rendering in my email client, because it has NO PLACE IN EMAIL. If you want me to see a webpage, then setup a webserver and buy a URL. Email is for text!!!!!
    • BassCadet, on 10/12/2007, -3/+17There are two things I want in my email:

      text and a blank background. That's it.

      I don't want colorful backgrounds, I don't want graphics, I don't forms.
    • defectDS, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Uh oh...

      http://images.apple.com/macosx/leopard/images/mailhero20060807.jpg

      "Hit “Send” and get ready for some astonished replies from everyone — even folks on PCs." I have a feeling that last bit is going to be removed soon...
    • sundancekid503, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10You people are ridiculous, this is a GOOD THING. If I need a browser to view your email, then just make it a webpage and send me a link! I DON'T WANT emails with background images, forms, popups, rollovers, flash, plugins, animated gifs, etc. I think it's wonderful that spammers wont have access to these things anymore, and most of these things pose security issues as well.
    • whiskerlickins, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5I despise HTML emails but our clients constantly ask for e-newsletters and such. For those of you thrilled about this, think about the hours of hell some of us will have to go through to appease the clients, idiotic as their requests can be. This is such a stupid change.
    • loconet, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7HTML in e-mails suck. I would be a happy man if it was all text. However, what people are failing to understand is that this update to Outlook does not stop HTML e-mails. Outlook has a huge market share when it comes to e-mail clients. This means developers like myself will need to scramble and adjust all mailing lists, reports, notices, greeting emails, receipts, etc HTML code to be "MS Word compliant" rather than IE regular HTML/CSS (up to a point). A lot of the code for HTML e-mail is reused to be viewable online through a regular web browser. We will now need to fork the code or add hacks to have a version for Outlook/Word, e-mail (rest of the sane e-mail clients), web. Getting rid of HTML completely would have been a much better decision.

      Thank you Microsoft for once again making my job harder just because you can't/dont want to fix the core of the problem. Why are you still relevant!? argh..
    • Cronus6, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4@whiskerlickins:
      "I despise HTML emails but our clients constantly ask for e-newsletters and such. For those of you thrilled about this, think about the hours of hell some of us will have to go through to appease the clients, idiotic as their requests can be. This is such a stupid change."

      Do us all a favor and tell them "no". You will feel better, and I know I will.
    • osbjmg, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3You could just use text, seriously, I don't open your attachments, and it's meant for that... really. Just like a letter from grandma.
    • Nicko9y, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Stating the obvious = digg whore
    • flake, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5All you guys who started creating these "rich" emails are to blame for why it's unusable today.

      Email should be plain text, period, full stop. Stop winging about oh it looks crappy and not pretty. If you and your business needs that, make a web page and send a link. People need to communicate and superfulous formatting only makes it harder and causes security risks and causes email clients to be bloated and makes spam tougher to filter and...and...
    • Memitim, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I like colored text and special characters for helping to keep multiple person threads organized., even emoticons are useful from time to time. But yeah, the full web page thing is annoying. Maybe they could come up with something like an .rtf format, but a bit more leeway. None of the background clutter and multiple columns; its easy enough to put something like that in an attachment.
    • OSDAgent, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1If you're using CSS instead of tables to create the layout of your email newsletter designs then you've been making a huge mistake. Designing for a website and designing for an email are completely separate approaches. All the reasons for using CSS in the first place become moot points for emails.
    • boob, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I design html emails for corporate clients who use optin mailing lists. To those bashing html - this change will only hinder the designer, you will still receive html emails, only now the email will be more bloated. This change is certainly not the end of html in your inbox.
    • mediaphile, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I can parse information in a website as easily as I can in a text-only message. In fact, well designed webpages can help organize information better than a purely text e-mail. What's the big problem? Unless you're on dial-up still, it's not the speed. And unless you have poor online habits, spam isn't the problem. Just saying "e-mails are supposed to be for text" doesn't make it that way indefinitely. Things change. You all do remember that at one point, the internet was all text based, right? And for those of you that just can't handle HTML e-mails, your'e just going to disable it anyway. So why cripple a feature for those you actually want it?
    • KungFuJesus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1that's not a bug, that's a feature!
    • excalpius, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Send it as a PDF, you html nincompoop. :)
    • Metasquares, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0@shrimpdesign:

      Emails are solitary documents. The advantage provided by CSS is not that it is inherently more concise, but rather that all presentational aspects of the design can (theoretically) be centralized in one file, which can then be cached. Since each email in your inbox is likely to have a different stylesheet, the advantage of one approach over another is questionable.
    • cooldudevamsee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Every time Microsoft hears the word "CSS" its pisses in its pants.

      There are lot of rumors around why Microsoft is not supporting web standards because companies like google will come up with free on-line live applications which will kill Microsoft desktop applications.

      Microsoft is trying hard to kill CSS and push their own crappy standards.
  • PatrickB, on 10/12/2007, -23/+24As a Web designer that never learned how to build a page using nested tables and other hacks, I feel for the newest crop of designers that will have to learn bad design simply to comply with Microsoft's ignorance.
    • willemmulder, on 10/12/2007, -20/+6wait... you're saying that 1.000.000+ people should change their way of coding just because 1 (one) company changes their layout stuff...?
      Let's just keep coding and see what happens
    • mrfoos, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13Sounds like a great plan for you. More business for me. :)
    • SoccerBoy, on 10/12/2007, -10/+18So you designed web pages... good for you.

      However, I think this change is good. I don't give two ***** if the emails I receive has backgrounds and stuff. White background and black texts works great for me.

      This hurts spammers, sending all that crap to me, more then anyone I do business with.

      If I want to see websites, I will go to websites, not my email.
    • MScrip, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0> "This hurts spammers, sending all that crap to me, more then anyone I do business with."

      Most of the spam I receive is one big image anyway.

      http://syndicatedrupture.info/www/8767491456876.jpg
    • geoken, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1So you feel for the newest crop of designers because it will be harder for them to design email distributed spam?
    • MScrip, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1> "So you feel for the newest crop of designers because it will be harder for them to design email distributed spam?"

      No. I'm just saying that a lot of spam is a single image. So, any e-mail program will still be able to show it.

      I think spammers should die. But, they will invent new methods to pollute our inboxes.
    • mendigg, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0The author of clause has mentioned and has opened excellent and a vital topic presently. Clause is written interestingly and the main thing actual. The same theme on Russian sites: http://pivo.in.ua http://www.alcogol.kiev.ua
  • jmreid, on 10/12/2007, -11/+12Simply amazing, but not surprising in the least.
    • Sivvy, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2Oh I see, you saw this coming did you?
    • nofxjunkee, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Well to be fair this is not the first "MS ***** up in a completely illogical and retarded move. Thousands pissed off even more than before." headline that we've all seen. So yeah, Office 2007 and Vista are gaining in usage and he could very have predicted that they would make a boneheaded mistake.

      All these people saying HTML mail is evil and this is a good thing are missing the point that some poor SOBs are going to have to try and get one HTML mail to look the same in Thunderbird, Apple Mail, Outlook, Outlook Express, and Windows Mail. That's their job and they are not going to quit or say "no" because they need the money. HTML mail is evil, but you are not going to convince J. Random CEO of that no matter how hard you try. If you disagree then you have never tried something along those lines yourself. It's futile.
  • gingernut, on 10/12/2007, -14/+107I have never liked HTML mail anyway. I wish people would stick to using plain text. email was designed well before HTML and I pisses people off that can't support HTML (I actually use PINE !). The worst offenders are companies that try to embed PDF's into emails. This has never worked on any email client I have used.
    • NeoZenkai, on 10/12/2007, -31/+26Agreed. Besides, Outlook is a *****, bloated, and incomprehensible mess of a mail program anyways.
    • evil-doer, on 10/12/2007, -25/+11will it bloat?
    • cliffzdude, on 10/12/2007, -1/+34More and more enterprises are stripping all html out of email at their email gateway. It really cuts down on nefarious crap, and renders spam that does make it thru your filtering far less harmful to concentration levels. You really don't need a spam getting through and eating bandwidth rendering a page durtybottomspankers.com. Really, you don't...

    • geronimo, on 10/12/2007, -18/+12In other words, Microsoft knows what's best for us.

      People wonder why others dislike Microsoft so much? This is reason 1,001. The background image problem is solved by your mailreader - if it is decent it asks you if you want images displayed. This is great for those mailing lists you want to be in which use background images that significantly improve the display.
    • MichaelDotNet, on 10/12/2007, -8/+25Agreed...if your content needs to be HTML...SEND ME A LINK. I use my email app to read email and my web browser to browse the web....Okay, I use my webbrowser to read email (gmail) but still...HTML email EVIL.
    • mrfoos, on 10/12/2007, -8/+14Old people feel the same way about email. They wish you'd just pick up the phone. But the world marches forward.
    • 35263526, on 10/12/2007, -13/+5What's the point in mobile phones? After all, phones were designed for communication between two set locations, so landlines should be good enough for anyone. Hell, what's the point in audio phonecalls at all? I mean, it's not as if the telecommunications network wasn't setup to handle telegrams.

      It's called progress. The world moves on. If you dislike HTML emails so damned much, then get a reader that strips the code. I, for one, like being able to use a multimedia communications system, and I greatly dislike being told what's good for me by Microsoft. This change is especially unfortunate because I really, really like Outlook 2007, but this is going to make it's primary function nearly useless for me.
    • leonbev, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3This is a plus for me as well. I block images for all incoming mail as an anti-spam precaution, so all of the fancy HTML e-junkmails that I get look messed up anyway.

      If you want me to view your web site, just send me a freaking link, OK? Don't try to embed your web site in the e-mail itself.
    • Sivvy, on 10/12/2007, -6/+2"I don't like HTML email"

      <sarcasm>Alrighty then, let's flush it down the toilet.</sarcasm>

      I'm not a fan myself, but I do prefer to keep my options open.
  • rossnyc, on 10/12/2007, -49/+12Wow..I'm surprised but not totally shocked. I design and create html emails at work a lot and already have to jump through hoops to get them to look similar cross browser/platform. With a hybrid css/tables coding of my emails I'm able to get everything pretty similar but this is a HUGE step backwards. It's amazing that their developers don't think of other factors when making huge decisions like this. Apple would never pull any crap like this. I HATE MICROSOFT WITH A PASSION. I HOPE THEY DIE.
    • marklj, on 10/12/2007, -5/+34you lost my green thumb when you revealed your Apple fanboy roots.

      You are a fool if you think Apple is just a bunch of *nice guys*.
    • bemenaker, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14 Keep your html on webserver where it fuhqing belongs
    • Cronus6, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4@rossync:
      "I design and create html emails at work...."

      I'm sure you will be thrilled to know that all of your "work" goes unread. It's annoying at goes straight into the trash.
      Why don't you tell your clients this and maybe, just maybe, they will stop with their annoying emails that no one reads.
    • BlackAdderIII, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2You design HTML emails at work?

      So you are, in essence, a spammer? Not good.
    • Atomic1fire, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Heres a thought
      Start backing thunderbird
      tell your coworkers family and freinds
      or you could donate http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/donate.html
      or buy stuff from the store
  • cmer, on 10/12/2007, -25/+16How many times can Microsoft screw up in a quarter? This is just amazing...
    • ScottAG, on 10/12/2007, -15/+16How many days are there in a quarter?
    • subliminalurge, on 10/12/2007, -8/+3and how many hours in a day?
    • dvfreelancer, on 10/12/2007, -10/+5"How many times can Microsoft screw up in a quarter?"

      Microsoft corporate execution has been in the toilet almost a dozen years now. Though lately they do seem to have taken a step down from their already low standards.

      Ballmer needs to go and Gates needs to focus on his philanthropy, something his foundation does extremely well. Along with them cut about half of their senior management staff. MSFT is, to a greater or lesser extent, a reflection of upper management. Until there are big changes at the top nothing is going to change at our level.
    • MrLunar, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4And which screw ups were these? As lame as your comment is, you should at least TRY and back it up.
    • bubba9999, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I tried to back it up, but Windows crashed when I started the backup program.
  • thcobbs, on 10/12/2007, -3/+47Good, gives everyone a good reason to do text only.

    edit: Thanks, for the confirmation RealHyperX...
    • airstrike, on 10/12/2007, -9/+7even if e-mails should be text-only, that doesn't mean microsoft should go against the developments that were made on HTML/CSS on the last 5 years. the sad thing is that by now we all should have seen this coming. it seems like the day microsoft will listen to the community (on whatever the subject is) is nowhere to be seen in the near future.
    • w0rd, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Except that you can still do HTML emails, they will just be bloated and table laden. This doesn't really fix things, just breaks them for the people designing them and eats more bandwidth for the users once they figure out a 'fix'.
  • RealHyperX, on 10/12/2007, -5/+72There are many who think email should be plain text format.
    • paulmdx, on 10/12/2007, -7/+15I wonder if it's the same anti-Microsoft people bitching about this that bitch about sending HTML emails in the first place?
    • ICSU, on 10/12/2007, -6/+10And there are many that think that the user should choose.
  • XSaYnt, on 10/12/2007, -8/+59Everyone shed a tear for the poor spammers who have to work harder to redesign their emails.
    • Cymrubeats, on 10/12/2007, -3/+28I never even knew until now that there was such a thing as an 'email designer'. Does that 'really' deserve a term of its own? What do you do? I design emails.........i'll, i'll get my coat.
    • ray901, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2@Cymrubeats
      Cymru's a rugby fan and I claim my set of spoons :)
    • ExSlashdotter, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2@cymru

      You say that, but if you're company has a marketing dept, i'm sure there's someone up there who's task is to design the bulkmail. Doing the emails might not be their only job, but it is a big responsibility of that person.
    • Salgat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The only thing this will do for spammers is make their job easier now that they don't have to compete by going through the effort of making over-the-top e-mails.
    • boob, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yeah, because it takes blood, sweat and tears to drop a computer-generated jpeg & some computer-generated text into html and push the send button.

      /sarcasm

      Honestly, I dont think spammers will give a rats ass. This change will mostly effect designers.
  • danknerd, on 10/12/2007, -7/+17I dont know if I can live any longer, this is an outrageous tragedy and it totally upsets me to the point of committing suicide.
    • wildfire, on 10/12/2007, -3/+38You may want to consult Clippy for some writing advice on that letter.
    • airstrike, on 10/12/2007, -9/+2and while some people laugh at microsoft's decisions, i for one just one to cry over this one.
    • BlackAdderIII, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"Hi! I'm Clippy.

      It appears you are writing a suicide note!

      Normally I'd offer some help, but it seems my work here is done."
    • dmitriyvoz, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0The author has mentioned very much a vital topic today. It seems to me that the problematics of this clause enables to reflect and draw conclusions. You can as to look sites in Russian which mention this theme: http://www.rolid.org http://www.se-ua.com
  • Nougat, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8Bleh. I hate using MS Word with Outlook; it often creates more problems than it solves. (Wait, what problems does it solve again?)

    Someone point me to an Exchange-capabale FOSS mail client, please.
  • chriskzoo, on 10/12/2007, -6/+76I cannot think of a single email that requires CSS/HTML rendering that is not an ad or spam, so who really cares?
    • rossnyc, on 10/12/2007, -35/+5You're right - you cannot think
    • fdiskit, on 10/12/2007, -5/+9@rossnyc - could you provide a specific example and not just an ad hominem attack? I will - lots of b2b emails contain a lot of information where formatting is key - catalog excerpts, house listings, etc. Before anybody starts yelling SPAM!, realize that this is SOLICITED commercial email, not just blind spam.

      My personal opinion is that if you want the recipient to see it like you intended it, put it in a PDF. If they really like what you're sending, you shouldn't have to worry about it . . .

      I hate UCE as much as anybody else (more - I'm in the security end of things). But realize that there is a use for this kind of stuff, and, sad to say, Outlook is the corporate standard for most of the world, even if we here are all FOSS fanboyz.
    • wonboodoo, on 10/12/2007, -5/+9@chriskzoo

      Yes, spam make up the majority of the CSS/HTML emails I get too, but I definitely get some that I value (Netflix allows you to rate the video you just saw straight from email, and various corporations I do business with send out valuable attractive monthly statements). A designer should be able to send out emails that look good, and I as a consumer would rather see an attractive email than one that wasn't attractive. Spammers are not going away if you remove their CSS ability (I know you weren't suggesting that they would). It's a downgrade of end-user experience no matter who is sending the email. ***** Microsoft for imposing their ways on others.
    • Rikkochet, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8I disagree. Unfortunely I only have anecdotal "evidence" - I'm on several mailing lists (ncix.com, codeproject, blizzard insider, a local radio station, a few others) so I AM soliciting these emails.

      And then every week I get this tacky, overformatted wannabe magazine in my inbox... At LEAST 9 times out of 10 I delete it without looking at it - I don't want to be presented with interpretive art, I want them to ***** say whatever it is they have to say. They don't, and thus their message is lost. I doubt I am alone.
    • dambuster, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Hmm, actually it is getting more usual to send formatted mails (f.e. with bullets and indents). The usage of html at least made it possible to read mails sent from Outlook in other mail clients. I am not sure what will happen when these mails are created with the Word engine?
  • Zaeyde, on 10/12/2007, -9/+7I can see the slight reasoning behind the security and whatnot, but don't we have a "View HTML" button? I know GMail does.
    Besides. I don't see the point of using Outlook anymore when there are many good web-based e-mail programs, such as, well, Gmail.
    Strike another point for me switching to a mac.
  • jasmNK, on 10/12/2007, -10/+45Good for MS. All emails should be plain text.
    • digga, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Except the Word engine is still trying to render HTML. It's not like MS is saying "no more HTML mail".
      If they were, that *might* be a good start.
  • BearFace, on 10/12/2007, -8/+31HTML email is poo in a corporate environment. Well done Microsoft!

    About time email is used for its initial purpose
  • scorwitz, on 10/12/2007, -2/+54One positive is that annoying coworkers won't be able to create cute stationery to send cute emails to their cute little friends, with script signatures, emoticons galore and pics of kitties and puppies playing.

    Seriously, why does anyone need to send HTML email. With the exception of some Bold, Italics and Underlining, I would leave the HTML and CSS to the web site and make the email plain text.
    • drewskyjones, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12"One positive is that annoying coworkers won't be able to create cute stationery to send cute emails to their cute little friends, with script signatures, emoticons galore and pics of kitties and puppies playing." The thought of that makes me say "Praise The Lord." I swear, everyone in an admin type position that sends email to the whole company has this *****. I find it irritating and it makes forwarded emails look like crap. Making that ***** go away makes me think this is a net positive.
    • diggdat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8@scorwitz
      "One positive is that annoying coworkers won't be able to create cute stationery to send cute emails to their cute little friends, with script signatures, emoticons galore and pics of kitties and puppies playing."

      I would digg that up twice if could...
    • crawfishsoul, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"One positive is that annoying coworkers won't be able to create cute stationery to send cute emails to their cute little friends, with script signatures, emoticons galore and pics of kitties and puppies playing."

      Yes, they will be able to do all of that. It just won't look so cute and cuddly.
    • ExSlashdotter, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2That stationary will be totallly unaffected by these changes, because it doesnt rely on css formatting. In fact, what MS is saying is that the same engine used to create a message in outlook will be used to render that message in outlook. so reallly, they're more guaranteeing that the stationary will show up...

      Plus, any network admin with a brain can shut the stationary stuff down at the office. You can set a policy to disallow stationary right in group policy.
    • jonahan52, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Now it'll look like Myspace..
  • cordtripper, on 10/12/2007, -9/+5Damned if you do damned if you don't. Microsoft gets shafted for using html email because of its insecurity so they remove the html email with a stripped down version and people then complain that MS doesn't support html email. geez some people just will never be happy
  • Scorpion1169, on 10/12/2007, -8/+29First of all: Plain Text. Always.

    Second of all: If they are forced to remove the OS's reliance on IE and uncouple it of course they have to remove Outlook's reliance on it. Now that doesn't absolve them from having written a crappy renderer into Word, but if they *did* write a robust engine, they would simply be replicating IE anyway.

    As usual, they are damned if they do and damned if they don't.
  • VTmruhlin, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Now that I'm actually working for a living, I've seen a few cases where HTML email is actually helpful. People frequently send stuff with tables. Sure, you could always just attach an excel spreadsheet though. Don't see why you'd need CSS though.
  • sjbdallas, on 10/12/2007, -15/+4Buried as INACCURATE.
    It's not microsoft's fault it's the spammers. They've tried to provide a rich email interface and have been taken advantage of by spammers which has forced companies to either go "plain-text" only or choose alternative email platforms. MS had not choice.
    • Nougat, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4The problem is less the rich platform and more the fact that the platform is over-rich - allowing commands to be run from HTML email. Same with macro viruses in Office products; I shouldn't be able to invoke commands like "format" from Excel.
  • Dvara, on 10/12/2007, -17/+4Whoever in Microsoft okayed this should get fired - period. As a web developer, I spend so long getting everything working properly on all the browsers using standard compliant techniques. This is now pre-IE 5 rendering. What a ***** joke.

    Microsoft can make good things and often do - this just shows how badly they can screw up. Forget using Word rendering for security reasons - fix IE.
  • Topher06, on 10/12/2007, -5/+17Honestly, I really hate it when people send me spam in HTLM format. Security issues asside, it isannoying to get an email with "stationary like effects" and annoying clipart attached. Or when people essentially send the HOME PAGE of their corporate website when they want to make me aware of new products or news.

    Look, the Web is for HTML. Email is for text. If you can't send information in an email using simple text formatting, your not good at your job. If you want people to get a more rich media experience with email, send them a text link to your website.

    I am sure Microsoft did their research and realized that in the corporate world, most people probably turned off the HTML option and preferred to get email in text format. It meant less prone to IE security flaws in HTML, and it also means a more professional interface for receiving email, sans cutesy signatures and images and annoying, overwrought content.

    I can't believe people are annoyed by this, obviously they are contributing to the kind of spam and junk that gets sends as HTML email. I for one applaud the idea of removing HTML email or at least reducing it to a minimum.

    Also, perhaps Microsoft made their Word rendering engine better. Anybody ever think of that rather then jumping to ridiculous conclusions and spouting hate. HTML email was so 5 years ago. It was an annoying trend that I am glad is being shown the door.
    • MeatBiProduct, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Preach on brotha!!
    • stalefries, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2I hate HTLM too!
    • aNoble, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The problem is they haven't stopped HTML emails at all. They've just taken away the ability to create well designed HTML email and forced people to use outdated and tedious methods.
  • Teegtahn, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5I'm sure there are going to be some webmasters up in arms when users with this thing can't view their newsletters, password reminders, or subscription notices properly.

    It will however have webdevs restructuring some things, but personally, I like some of the looks that can only really be achieved with full HTML and CSS integration.

    Spam is spam, be it plain text or HTML enriched.

    Microsoft has screwed the new office... Seems like I'll stick with 2005 SBE.
  • bgbs, on 10/12/2007, -5/+8What M$ did was the right thing in my opinion. We are getting so much spam, it is ridiculous. The spam companies can no longer fight spam. If you crank up your spam blocker, good luck receiving legit emails.
    Taking the spam back, and not allowing images, will help fix the problem big time. Who needs images in the body anyways? Only spammers and companies pushing their newsletters through.
    The rest of us dont need them.

  • zcreem, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12First decent thing MS has done for web standards.
    I am sick to death of all this HTML email *****, if I want to see HTML I will visit your site, otherwise ***** off.
    As for using Outlook well that's their LookOut, not mine, I dumped that crap collector years ago.
  • damndj, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I have resisted HTML email for the longest time, so a few years ago I wouldn't have cared about this news. Recently, I've come to terms with my dislike for it and there are a few cases where I can actually appreciate it (newsletters and the sort).

    This is just baffling why they would go a few generations back for HTML e-mail. This should just push more people to better, free alternatives such as Yahoo, Gmail, and Thunderbird.

    Shame on MS.
  • benspikey, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10stop bashing MS if you don't understand why they did what they did.. this was done to decouple outlook from internet explorer..

    http://www.windowsitpro.com/Article/ArticleID/93346/93346.html?Ad=1

    "Form" you own opinions
    If you get the Form problem then maybe you understand the real issue with the changes in outlook 2007.

    I have been using outlook 2007 and have had no rendering problems.
    • haelios, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Ditto, I've had no problems with HTML mail that uses some of the CSS mentioned in the article.
  • haelios, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Hang on, does the Word 2007 have a new HTML renderer that supports advanced CSS etc.? If so, then if people using Outlook 2007 that also have Word 2007 installed wouldn't have any problems right?
    • uownedge, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It's probably updated, but it really doesn't effect the matter at hand. Even if it is updated, as we can see from both the article, and Microsoft's own list of what is/isn't supported, it's still breaking a lot of very commonly used code.

      I guess it's kind of a conflict of interest really. Microsoft wants to do it their own way, people expect more from email than they should, and coders want standards compliance.

      If you ask me, all email should be text only. I don't believe email should be a web page. That's what we have the internet for.

      Or maybe I'm just old school like that ;)
    • loconet, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"
      If you ask me, all email should be text only. I don't believe email should be a web page. That's what we have the internet for.

      Or maybe I'm just old school like that ;"

      You are not that old school if you call the www "the Internet".
  • inajeep, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Dug on information only. I have been using Text only for a while since it was one way to combat spam and hidden images.
  • thispleasesme, on 10/12/2007, -15/+3I'm a content designer for a Concert/Events ticketing company in Atlanta. We have 35,000 subscribers on our e-mail list who consistently click through our HTML/CSS e-mail newsletters to find new events. Our mailing is done with targeted demographics, all of which is solicited and signed up for by the end user. Our tracking software identifies that over eighty percent of recipients do use and click through the e-mails before deleting them and our unsubscribe rate is incredibly low. We are not spammers. We're content providers.

    This sets us back in a HUGE way.

    Way to go MS. Another day I look at my Macbook and smile.
    • putnam, on 10/12/2007, -1/+17Weird, I look at my Macbook Pro and frown while I watch Microsoft Entourage churn since it's the only decent business email client available for OS X right now.

      Owning an Apple product doesn't give you license to be a smug *****.
    • CalipsoII, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9@putnam

      Really and truly man, you just made my day. They should make that the Digg quote-of-the-week:

      "Owning an Apple product doesn't give you license to be a smug *****."

      Dugg.
    • MeatBiProduct, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4You're ***** spammers don't ***** yourself. The 35,000 people you mail (which guess what - ISN'T a lot, my personal site had 40,000+ members) most likely don't read or don't care about your 'promotional' email. When was the last time you were like "YES! The new newsletter of someone trying to sell me ***** is here!"

      If people want to see a concert and want to purchase tickets they'll do it. Your just shoving the info up their arses hoping to cash in. No one needs your 'ticket' service cause if it disapeered tomorow another 1000 talentless assholes could step up and take your place.
    • noahhoward, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1BiProduct, what the ***** is your problem? Spammers are not the only people who use HTML emails. There are people who sign up for email services and expect to see a clean graphic presentation of data and other items. It has its place and your ***** ranting about spam and the number of visitors to your site leaves be to believe you don't kow a damn thing about the way the web works.

      There are people who PAY to have html email services delivered to them, they recieve statistics and other useful information they recieve branded marketing info that they have requested. This move from Microsoft is a completely unjustified knife in the back of plenty of businesses and their clients.
    • boob, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0@thispleasesme

      "blah blah blah,
      I'm a mac fan boy"

      dugg down - sorry, them's the rules! I think you have a valid point though, this change sucks.
  • liquidice, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1nice description, something a little more substantial would be appreciated
  • OneZeroZeroOne, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Well this makes sense, considering there was another Digg article about how MS hadn't complied with the anti-trust ruling about detatching IE from the operating system. Maybe they're beginning to comply.

    If there's no guarantee that IE is on the computer, then there's no guarantee it'll be there for Outlook to use. Outlook is most likely coded to ONLY use IE, anyway. So how could it call out to say, FireFox or Opera, and still have the whole look and feel be integrated within Outlook? It can't. And even if it could, MS wouldn't do it because Outlook and MS would get blamed when a user using some other browser with a security vulnerability gets a virus on their box.
  • roadmr, on 10/12/2007, -10/+2Its a dupe. http://digg.com/tech_news/Microsoft_Breaks_HTML_Email_Rendering_in_Outlook_2007
  • imexcitebike, on 10/12/2007, -4/+5When I get emails, I want information. Not pretty graphics.

    Tell me what you need to tell me, and let that be it. The end.
    • noahhoward, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2So if you sign up for a service that analyses your site traffic you wan them to send you the raw logs instead of the graphical pie charts? Get a ***** clue will you?
  • seanharrop, on 10/12/2007, -5/+7This is great news for people like me who don't want HTML in their email. :)
    • clickwir, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5I agree. This is good news. Stupid people making ugly emails. Microsoft should never had put that stuff in there in the first place.
    • noahhoward, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1It's horrible news for people who pay for email content that is best represented graphically.
    • seanharrop, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I know! Isn't it great?! :)
    • seanharrop, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I just realized that you said "pay". Agreed... its not so great for those people.
    • mrpatto, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0No, this is bad news for people like you, because now you will be getting html emails that are bulkier and uglier than before.
  • clickwir, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7FINALLY! This is a good thing!

    All that crap clogging up emails and making them look like crap.

    Email wasn't meant for all that CSS junk and it shouldn't be used for it either. If you need to make something look pretty, make it in Word, Writer, Paint, SOMETHING other than email. NEVER count on the email client to do anything other than display basic text and attachments.
    • jav1231, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Agreed. Text email is faster, stronger, better.
  • MikeUnwired, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4I personally think that email should be plain simple text only anyway, so this shouldn't bother me, but, it does for economic reasons.

    Microsoft's research stopped at their bottom line when they figured-out that requiring Word to render HTML email would make Outlook users have to spring for the full Office suite rather than just using Outlook 2007 as a stand alone or stand alone upgrade.

    Can you say tying and monopoly? I thought you could...
  • jav1231, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Yeah, IE renders CSS so brilliantly that some Word Press templates have to make special concessions specifically for it. Why don't you quantify this by saying: "I can always count on IE to render CSS specifically designed for IE perfectly?"

    Frankly, the more they untangle IE from the core of the OS the better it is for everyone. This is GOOD news. Sorry if you've gotten hooked on the crack but Honey Bear doesn't work Outlook St. anymore.
  • nofaith, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3I have to disagree with those people who think this is bad. For one, I dislike HTML e-mail, but more than that, HTML e-mail is a popular way to spread worms and trojan horses. If it were up to me, all e-mail would be in Plain text. It was that way before, why not again? :P
    • noahhoward, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Learn more about this, you can spread viruses in email without HTML, they were doing it years ago.
  • cplusplus, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4Oh my Gawd, no background images! Haha. Mail should not have background images.
    Its mail, not a website.
  • mattym, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2Good for Microsoft. If I wanted to see flashy HTML, I would open Firefox. E-Mail has slowly moved
    from simple correspondence to basically transmitting micro-websites to people. If your going to take the
    time to compose such a fanciful email with float, css, et al. why not compose a meat and bones plaintext version and provide a link to a website with the flashy version.

    • noahhoward, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3You clearly don't know what you're talking about, like damn near everyone else in this thread.

      1. Good emails are sent using multipart formatting, meaning we send a text and html version and you see one or the other based on preference. So, you assholes who are bitching and raving about HTML email could have set your clients to plain text only years ago and been done with it.

      2. Years of research has shown that some information is best sent visually, meaning it is a good idea for me to send a client a graphical representation he's asked for rather than a text version. Same principal behind powerpoint, you don't go before your boss with a bunch of plain text slides.

      3. Spammers are not the only people who use HTML emails, many people pay for or subscribe to content that falls nto the category discussed in #2.

      4. This will do nothing to stop spammers from sending you HTML, now you will just be bombarded with fewer legitimate html emails and more spam emails, all of which will be horribly screwed by Outlook.
    • krishenn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@noahhoward:
      I agree with your points. HTML emails, if done properly, can be useful.
  • bbmatt, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2The bulk of email applications, including online mail, don't support the full range of XHTML/CSS functionality.

    I do a LOT of newsletters at work - no, not spam, but newsletters for signed up company customers (mainly sports related) and I have to do everything with "old school" HTML in order to ensure that the newsletters render correctly in all email applications.

    This really isn't a big deal - the vast majority of email should be plain text based anyway.

  • bram, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It is a lose-lose situation for MS. People complained when the integrated IE and now the complain when the pull it out.
  • sepelester, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Microsoft is forced by the DOJ to make Internet Explorer non-mandatory in Windows. So far they haven't complied, but this could be a step on the way. If Outlook (or outlook express) needed Internet Explorer, it wouldn't be possible to uninstall it from windows without removing your beloved email client as well. I'm glad they are going the right way, even though the html rendering would suffer (temporarily I'm sure) in Outlook and the help browser etc.

    Last summer the E.C. made a similar complaint that resulted in Microsoft being forced to ship Windows XP versions with an unistallable Windows Media Player. This is only in European versions of Windows XP though.
    • noahhoward, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Digging you up for being the first person to show sense and understanding while not being against this change.

      I pray you are right and this is some temporary situation and part of the broader lompliance issues.
  • falter, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0The bloggers comment on security was snarky, at most. If anyone is to believe that all security issues are solved in the latest version of XYZ, then they have never done any programming, nor have they had any experience in the security industry. Most people have neither, so I can see how the blogger is all up in a tizzy over things.

    One of the big deals with IE7 is that it'll sandbox iexplore.exe, and not, correct me if I'm wrong, the HTML rendering engine. That is, if you seriously wanted to dong the end-user, and you couldn't do it by exploiting an IE vulnerability in IE, I'd just send them an email. IE's sandbox will keep the malicious attack from killing your system through sandboxing, but that wouldn't be the case in Outlook, where no sandboxing would occur.

    Now, If the author can explain to me why an email might need embedded activex objects, javascript, VML, or what have you is really flippin important, then I'll be more than happy to get on his side of things. Guess what guys? There's no secure way to browse the internet securely. Get over it. When you cross-breed insecure applications, you get the best AND worst of both worlds.

    Also, background images? Seriously? What better way to turn a 1 kilobyte message into a 300 kilobyte mess. Nobody cares about how neat that leafy patterned template makes your email look.
    • noahhoward, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Research shows otherwise.

      Which do you enjoy reading more, a plain text article or the same article in a nicely done magazine.
  • itsfood, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Well I'm using Outlook 2007 at the moment and had nor rendering problems (so far) although it is a resource hog!
  • cmicali, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0This article is incorrect. I am using Outlook 2007 and it supports backgrounds (via tags and css) and css styling, and none of the HTML email I have received looks broken at all. The anti-microsoft FUD is almost getting worse than microsoft's.
  • xtis, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5This really pisses me off!
    Personally, I couldn't care less even if they decided to scrape e-mail altogether - good riddance I say, 9/10 of it is spam anyway. However...
    I recently had to design an HTML template for a client of ours that mimics the design of the site we're doing. Went to hell and back, but in the end it worked, for most of the readers (including web, not without glitches mind you). This is simply going to make it impossible to adapt it.
    Virtually all of the spam messages today will be compatible with the new Outlook rendering scheme, because they use simple HTML formatting, and NO CSS.
    If you don't care about pretty e-mails, please STFU. You don't have a say in this as it does not concern you in any way. MIME e-mail can support a plain text version along with the "real" one, so it's not like you're suffering, we (who like to think that in the 21st century plain text is just plain ugly) are the ones who are getting screwed. And the nerve of you guys, with all the Vista bashing and "I'm gonna switch, I'm not taking this *****" drama suddenly this is a Good Thing (tm). From the people who thought JavaScript in e-mails is not a bad idea. I mean, come on...

    And the problem isn't just HTML e-mails. It's a dumb decision that affects A LOT of people (and legitimate businesses). And the fact is we can't do jack about it. You can proactively work against it, unless you're feeling suicidal. Spread the word about alternatives? Yeah, good luck with that.
    How much longer until people realize they're working against their own interests by buying this crap?
    • mattym, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1actually it does concern me. Just because I hold an opposing opinion, doesn't mean I don't have a say in this. I say this is a GOOD thing, not to rub salt in your wounds, but for ME, it IS a good thing. I'm sorry you're life will be interrupted by this, but mine will hopefully become better, if people stop with their ridiculous website-emails.

      Oh, and thanks for politely asking me to shut the F up. You're so nice. Good luck in '07 with outlook!
    • xtis, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@mattym: well, it may not seem like it, but I do respect your opinion. But can you give me one good reason why this is a good thing for you? It's not really like you're going to stop receiving ridiculous website-emails, you'll just end up with broken ridiculous website-emails.
      On top of that unsolicited e-mail is the definition of spam, so why do you care about something you don't want to read in the first place?
      You can go plain text if that's how you like it, but there should be an Options setting for this, not ***** obstacles against the contrary. If people can't go through the trouble to respect your feelings about the formatting of correspondence they send you, they don't deserve your attention in the first place IMO.
    • MeatBiProduct, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3You can do something about it - its called switch email clients.

      Thunderbird + Sunbird + Firefox = Bliss
  • el_taco, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4Email should be plain text end of story. Who cares if you can't change a ***** background. Booh hoo.. now grandma won't be able to send me those horrid emails anymore that render wrong in thunderbird anyways.
    • noahhoward, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Please stop acting like you have a clue what you are talking about. If plain text worked for everyone we wouldn't have a need for TV or Photos.
  • whisperedlie, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I hate HTML emails anyways. I always have HTML stripped out.
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