How to Fix 11 Common Rendering Issues

September 25, 2025

In the event you’ve spent any time within the e mail world you’re most likely conscious of Outlook’s fame. Also known as the problem child of the email world, Outlook has been the reason for many frustrations, missed deadlines, and complications for e mail builders, designers, and entrepreneurs world wide.

Point out Outlook to an e mail developer and also you’ll be met with rolling eyes and maybe a couple of expletives. Irrespective of what number of Outlook coding guides you learn, there’s all the time one thing to throw a wrench within the gears.

Nevertheless, it doesn’t all should be destructive! Though Outlook stirs these deep feelings in us, it’s like that one good friend all of us have that you recognize goes to show up 45 minutes later than anticipated, it could be extremely irritating nevertheless it’s additionally reliably irritating.

Coding emails that look nice on Outlook is a ceremony of passage for all e mail builders; Outlook pushes us to suppose exterior the field to create lovely emails that face up to its quirks. It’s a playground the place a wonderfully aligned button turns into a badge of honor, and a desk that refuses to cooperate transforms right into a testomony of our problem-solving abilities. Certain, it could throw us a curveball from time to time, however isn’t that what makes life thrilling?

Be a part of us as we delve into the intricacies, share insights, and equip ourselves with the instruments vital to overcome the challenges offered by Outlook.

The desktop variations of Outlook, particularly these predating Outlook 2013, make use of the Phrase rendering engine as an alternative of a devoted HTML rendering engine. This engine, initially designed for phrase processing, has limitations in interpreting modern HTML and CSS techniques generally utilized in e mail design.

Though Outlook is now not the powerhouse it was as soon as by way of e mail shopper market share, usurped in recent times by Apple/iOS Mail and Gmail, it nonetheless instructions a wholesome common 5%* of the market significantly in company environments. It’s nonetheless crucial to make your emails look nice on Outlook.

*That is simply a mean. Your e mail lists could differ, we all the time advocate checking your own analytics to see who’s opening your emails on which purchasers.

That is by far essentially the most infamous and problematic Outlook concern that exists. Nothing beats ending up your lovely, intricate e mail design, passing it via your email rendering tests and seeing a random white line in your Outlook take a look at.

Whereas it might not be essentially the most egregious design break, the way in which it appears to occur at random, and the fixes we now have to make use of, make it an virtually rage-inducing bug. Regardless of Microsoft being fully aware of the bug, we’ve seen no fixes on Outlook’s finish.

So, why do these white traces seem in your Outlook emails? Though we don’t know the precise purpose for this odd habits, the leading theory is that it has to do with heights which might be odd numbers.

If these white traces are inflicting you a headache there are some potential fast fixes that can assist you eliminate them, at the very least briefly:

Change up your font sizes and heights.

Add a ghost break.

Usually including a ghost break will briefly repair the rogue white traces in Outlook. Just like ghost columns, a ghost break is a line break that we add focused solely in the direction of Outlook.

Match the background colour.

Add some Microsoft particular code

Outlook white traces nonetheless bought you down?

If not one of the above helped repair your white traces or if you happen to’re to learn extra about how and why these traces happen we wrote an in-depth article taking a deeper dive into it. We additionally advocate trying out this brilliant article from our mates over at ActionRocket.

2. Outlook lacks assist for animated GIFs.

Does Outlook assist GIFs? That relies on the model during which your animation is opened. Outlook and its lack of assist for animated GIFs has long-been a sore level for a lot of designers.

Whereas the newer variations of Outlook now have GIF assist, the older Home windows desktop variations (2007-2016) will nonetheless solely render the primary body of an animated GIF.

In case your GIF features a call-to-action or any info that’s important to the e-mail’s messaging, it’s best to all the time attempt to embody it within the first body. If that isn’t attainable you may all the time employ this technique to indicate a GIF in most e mail purchasers, however disguise it and present a static fallback picture in Outlook.

3. CSS background pictures not supported.

Some time again Microsoft added CSS background image support to Outlook 365 and Outlook.com, however we nonetheless lack assist for these in most desktop variations of Outlook, and we don’t anticipate this being modified any time quickly.

If you need your background pictures to work on Outlook 2016 and different older desktop variations you’ll must dive into the world of Vector Markup Language (VML).

VML will let you get these lovely background pictures engaged on Outlook however will add a layer of complexity to your e mail coding course of. Finally, every e mail is completely different and sometimes your e mail designs will nonetheless work with out your background pictures loading, it’s all the way down to you to determine if the additional effort of VML is value if to your particular wants.

4. Outlook ignores margin and padding.

One of many persistent challenges confronted by e mail builders when coding for Outlook is its tendency to disregard margin and padding properties.

Sure variations of Outlook will take away padding in a variety of conditions, although you might have extra luck with margins. It’s additionally vital to do not forget that each desktop model of Outlook received’t assist the styling of div> tags, so if you happen to’re utilizing

s to your format keep in mind to make use of the ghost column technique, wrapping the divs in Outlook particular tables to let you model these for Outlook.

The way you handle your spacing in your e mail code is vital and if you happen to’re having hassle getting the spacing you need in Outlook you may take a deeper dive into margins and padding in HTML email.

5. Outlook provides a border to desk cells.

A bug in Outlook 2016 provides a 1-pixel border round desk cells in emails. This might not be a significant drawback except you want your e mail template to line up completely.

To eliminate this further border, use “border-collapse: collapse;” embedded or inline. This CSS property signifies whether or not cells have a shared or separate border. Setting the property to the collapse worth means it combines to a single border.

6. Outlook ignores hyperlink styling.

In sure instances Outlook won't apply the hyperlink styling you’ve utilized to your hyperlinks.

Particularly, Outlook will strip the styling from tags with out an href worth or hyperlinks that don’t have https:// or https://, which may be annoying if you happen to’re utilizing them as anchors to navigate the e-mail, utilizing mailto hyperlinks, or utilizing placeholder hyperlinks for testing functions.

If it is advisable to take a look at an e mail earlier than you could have stay URLs for that e mail, think about using a placeholder hyperlink that features a https:// or httsp:// protocol.

In the event you discover that Outlook is stripping your types from a mailto or inside anchor hyperlink, merely wrap the tag in a and apply your styling to the encircling span.

7. Resizing non-native pictures in Outlook.

Outlook will all the time attempt to render your pictures at their native dimensions which may be annoying once you’re creating bigger pictures and scaling them down, a common technique for high DPI devices.

Whereas most e mail purchasers will respect your CSS, Outlook won't respect CSS to resize pictures. That’s why it’s vital when resizing pictures to outline the attributes in HTML for Outlook. You’ll solely must outline the width, Outlook will resize the peak accordingly to keep up the right picture proportions.

In the event you’re seeing pictures that don’t look nice in Outlook make sure you verify that you simply’ve outlined the proper width within the HTML.

8. Outlook ignores HTML merchandise width and top.

As we’ve already talked about, Outlook doesn’t assist styling within

tags.

So, when an e mail renders in Outlook, the

sections will assume the peak of the textual content within them, and 100% width, even if you happen to specify a top/width for them in code.

As soon as once more, the repair for Outlook HTML emails is to make use of tables as an alternative. We've got seen this with a couple of different components, however the

scenario is the most typical drawback.

9. Font stacks and Occasions New Roman.

In terms of font rendering, Outlook presents a novel problem for e mail builders as a consequence of its restricted assist for internet fonts and reliance on font stacks. In contrast to most e mail purchasers, Outlook doesn't have built-in assist for downloading and displaying customized internet fonts immediately from exterior sources.

Additional to this, if you happen to embody a customized font on the high of your font stack, Outlook will ignore your entire fallback fonts and as an alternative show Occasions New Roman. (Thanks, Outlook!)

• Repair 1: Exchange the stack utilizing attribute selectors.
• Repair 2: Wrap textual content in a span.
• Repair 3: Add MSO conditional code.
• Repair 4: Specify a customized font in a media question.

Repair 1 was the preferred amongst e mail geeks who submitted their very own options to Electronic mail on Acid. It really works as a result of Outlook ignores attribute selectors. This code will inform the e-mail shopper to switch any model that features the customized font with the proper stack:

                            

                                 
   
     
     
   
   
     
Making Electronic mail Lovely!
     
Helvetica
     
Occasions New Roman
   
 

                            
                        

If this repair didn’t give you the results you want or if you happen to’d wish to take a extra thorough take a look at font stacks in Outlook we wrote a comprehensive guide to font stacks and Outlook.

10. Controlling line top in Outlook.

At one time, emails have been rendering taller than anticipated in Outlook.com as a result of the shopper was controlling line-height utilizing CSS. That’s not a lot of a problem anymore.

Microsoft Office styles (MSO styles) will tighten up your traces only a bit. In case your spacing appears off, give it a strive. Add “mso-line-height-rule:precisely;” immediately earlier than the line-height model, inline or embedded.

11. Electronic mail alignment points in Outlook

One other widespread drawback with older desktop variations of Outlook is wonky alignment, particularly when attempting to incorporate two or extra columns that are supposed to stack properly on cell gadgets to your responsive designs.

In the event you’re encountering points like this together with your format on Outlook fear not! The answer is easy – we flip again to our trusty previous good friend the Ghost Column fix. By wrapping the issue columns in an Outlook particular ghost desk we will constrain the columns in order that they show as supposed.

To view the total code snippets or take a deep-dive into the world of ghost columns, take a look at our fluid hybrid design guide and our explanation of ghost tables.

The issues we do for Outlook HTML emails.

Along with the 11 widespread challenges mentioned earlier, Outlook’s peculiarities usually require us to implement particular workarounds and changes. These extra steps are vital to make sure optimum rendering and performance in varied variations of Outlook.

Desk-based layouts.

If it wasn’t for Outlook we’d be capable of ditch the tables and embrace the . Tables have lengthy been the usual for e mail builders, however as e mail requirements catch as much as internet requirements, increasingly builders are ditching table-based layouts in favour of divs with ghost tables. In actual fact, our very own email newsletters are coded with this technique.

In the event you’re excited about breaking the mildew and experimenting with emails with out tables, you may take a look at this unbelievable repo from Mark Robbins on getting off the table.

MSO conditional statements.

You’ll discover within the 11 suggestions and tips above we regularly depend on MSO conditional code to get round Outlook’s tough restricted assist.

MSO conditional statements are a unbelievable device permitting us to focus on Outlook desktop variations particularly, even permitting us to focus on particular variations. This permits us to create workarounds for Outlook that may in any other case have us pulling our hair out.

Intensive e mail testing

It’s vital to check your e mail throughout each system or e mail shopper that your recipients could also be opening on, nevertheless it’s particularly vital to check for Outlook.

Not solely do we now have to make use of a variety of whacky work-arounds and intelligent conditional code to make our e mail look nice on these variations of Outlook, there’s additionally a variety of them!

From Outlook.com, to Outlook 2010, to excessive DPI variations of Outlook 2016, a device like Email on Acid’s testing tool allows you to immediately see how your e mail is rendering throughout each model of Outlook.

Don’t depart your Outlook-specific fixes to guess work, guarantee they give the impression of being nice on each model of Outlook and simplify your Outlook e mail troubleshooting.

ALT textual content

Whereas we aren’t solely including ALT textual content for Outlook, it’s additionally extraordinarily important for accessibility and any of your readers who've pictures disabled, it’s a key a part of creating emails for Outlook as Outlook customers will all have their pictures disabled by default. You continue to need your emails to convey your messaging even when the photographs are disabled.

Correct ALT textual content utilization is commonly the important thing think about getting your recipient to click on that “permit pictures” button to allow them to see your e mail in all its glory.

Keep away from Outlook rendering points with e mail previews

One of the simplest ways to keep away from HTML emails that look unhealthy in Outlook is to take an in depth take a look at how issues render earlier than you hit ship. You are able to do that with Sinch Electronic mail on Acid.

Use our e mail readiness platform to take a look at Outlook HTML e mail previews that come from stay purchasers and gadgets. These screenshots, which embody e mail previews from 100+ purchasers and gadgets, are seeing the way forward for your campaigns in subscribers’ inboxes.

With Electronic mail on Acid, you get unlimited email testing with each paid plan. That features far more than Outlook e mail previews. You’ll additionally get deliverability and accessibility checks as properly picture and URL validation and many other valuable features.

Don’t let Outlook rendering points derail your e mail advertising and marketing efforts. Put your finest campaigns ahead with assist from Electronic mail on Acid.

Don’t guess, take a look at

Electronic mail purchasers are continuously altering, which is why it’s vital to check your e mail each time; what labored yesterday may not work at the moment. Sinch Email on Acid gives limitless e mail testing in main mailbox suppliers and the preferred gadgets. Check 100+ choices as a lot as you need – there’s no restrict. Meaning you can also make certain your e mail seems good earlier than it hits the inbox. Need to see for your self? Take advantage of our free, seven-day trial.