HTML Emails. Why is the layout messed up in outlook.

[frakius]

This issue has been annoying me since windows phone 8.1 and there seems to be no fix in Windows Phone 10. For some reason HTML emails look totally messed up, they reflow all over the place and generally look crap, the odd one comes out right but the majority are horrible to read and scroll through.

Android gets it right, iOS gets it right, heck even Windows Phone 7 got it right!!!!! Why on earth can't it be right in Windows Phone 10.
I have attached a photo of my phones with same email loaded to give you a example of it. I get a lot of emails that are in HTML format and I hate reading them on my windows phone because of this.

Is there some setting that I am missing that can fix this or is Outlook on Windows phone just useless at reflowing HTML emails (Outlook on iPhone does it perfectly)

 

[jmwhite19]

The short answer is because Windows 10 Mobile is using Microsoft Word for rendering HTML, since the Outlook Mail client is the universal Outlook app, rather than the previous Outlook Mobile on WP7/WP8 which used IE Mobile for rendering. Windows Phone 7.5 - Windows Phone 8.1, rendered email pretty well providing the developer forced the IE document mode.

Any email developer knows that MS Word has a bad history of email rendering and it really shows on mobile. Why Microsoft decided to bring MS Word to mobile space without modern standards support is beyond belief, but here we are and the results speak for itself.

In a nutshell, Outlook Mail on Windows 10 doesn't support any modern web standards (its stuck with HTML4 and doesn't even have full CSS2 support), so most emails will look like crap, but depending on the layout, most also require elements like CSS3, Media queries etc, to be optimised for mobile which MS Word won't do.

TL;DR. Microsoft Word engine. Enough said. Might be able to create "rich" content, useless at rendering email, but this has been the case since Outlook 2007, Microsoft won't listen.

The reason why other Outlook clients on iOS/Android work fine is because they don't use the MS Word engine. IRONY.

 

[frakius]

Thank you for explaining why this happens.

Email is one of the things you think Microsoft could get right as it has control over it, they can't control third party devs and get them to make apps but they could at least make email a pleasurable experience on windows phone.

Email is very important for me and a lot of other people I am sure, things like this make it hard for me to use and recommend Windows Phone over other platforms. Lots of small things all add up to something that's too much of a compromise for me, I really have tried over the years to go all in on windows phone but there's always something that holds me back and I end up back on iOS as my main phone, with my windows phone relegated to a backup.

Regards

 

[jmwhite19]

Unfortunately, as long as Microsoft keep MS Word stuck in the 90's for web standards the problem will remain. Desktop Outlook has been like it for years, but devs have learnt to code for it over time, whether defensively or graceful degradation. The problem Microsoft have created is all the MSO hacks that devs use now target the mobile client, because they share the same engine, which was never envisaged until Microsoft MS Word rendering to mobile in Windows 10.

If MS Word was more like Edge, it would be a better experience.

 

[neko1302]

I have a Lumia 435 with windows 10 and Lumia 950xl

on the lumia 435 the email are formatted in the right way on the lumia 950xl not.

i think they use the same word so it's not the problem

 

[jmwhite19]

I have a Lumia 435 with windows 10 and Lumia 950xl

on the lumia 435 the email are formatted in the right way on the lumia 950xl not.

i think they use the same word so it's not the problem

Yes it is. The Word rendering engine IS the problem.

The reason the Lumia 950 XL might look worse than the Lumia 435 is because of DPI. Outlook also has a bad history of rendering email when using higher scaling factors, this goes all the way back to Outlook 2007 and later versions on desktop. Considering the 950 XL is 518 ppi (very high resolution), this really shows the problems with the Word rendering engine.

 

[Jon_Rubinstein]

IS anyone at MS reading this???? This is absolutely unbelievable.

 

[RonnieJP]

Here's a screen capture snip of a post on a Microsoft forum of a reply from a MS support engineer. It's really unbelievable.

 

[jmwhite19]

That is likely because the "Support Engineer" is not understanding the problem.

The actual reason behind all of this is rather technical and would require developers and people involved with the design of the Microsoft Word engine to resolve. As this is integrated with A LOT of Outlook products, its not a simple fix, but its not an excuse either.

I can vouch that there was feedback posted on this very subject 8 months ago as the warning signs were there when Outlook Mail first showed up in the preview builds:

windows-feedback:?contextid=259&feedbackid=a6ab1e9a-75a4-4183-b63d-324d446a2c8b&form=2&src=1

I should know, I wrote it.