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It's been a minute since the last episode of Notes from the Dev, but it's worth the wait. We have one of the most famous email geeks of all time on the show: Mark Robbins. He shows us how to improve Outlook email by using the Microsoft Word rendering engine to your advantage.
If that sounds crazy, I get it. But just wait.
You may have encountered Mark Robbins thanks to his website, aptly named GoodEmailCode.com. In addition to being an accomplished email developer, Mark is also a software engineer who has worked for Salesforce and currently works with our friends at Parcel.io. He is also a founding member of the Email Markup Consortium (EMC), which advocates for email industry standards that improve the inbox experience.
While those of us who code email know that desktop versions of Outlook can be a huge burden, Mark has managed to find a silver lining in this cloud of frustration. Get ready for some early morning nostalgia. Check out the episode below and read on to find out more.
Word rendering engine: The big problem with Outlook emails
Email rendering is the way different email clients support and process the HTML and CSS code in your campaigns. Using different rendering engines often results in inconsistent results across different inboxes. For example, Apple Mail uses WebKit for its rendering engine, which has the best support and allows for more interactive elements in emails.
However, desktop versions of Outlook use Microsoft Word to render emails. The Word rendering engine is responsible for many of the most common email coding challenges. This includes everything from random white lines in Outlook to problems with animated GIFs.
MSO styles for Outlook emails
One way for email developers to troubleshoot HTML email issues in Outlook is to use Microsoft Office (MSO) style attributes using
Note: Outlook for Mac, iOS and Android do not use the Word rendering engine, meaning MSO styles are not supported.
Mark's website has a collection of code snippets with MSO styles, including ways to format text for Outlook emails. That's where we go next…
Use WordArt to easily improve Outlook emails
Ready to create email designs like it's 1999? 25 years ago, if you used Microsoft Word to design an invitation to your birthday party or wanted to dress up your homework, you probably used WordArt.
If this sounds only vaguely familiar, perhaps this will refresh your memory:
Via Reddit r/nostalgia
In this episode, Mark shows us an easy way to get started with word processing and quickly generate code that turns the Word rendering engine into something of a superpower. You can use it to add WordArt-inspired typography and more to your Outlook emails.
Why would you want to do that? Well my friends, the 90s are back. You've probably noticed graphic design trends reminiscent of commercials that aired during your favorite Saturday morning cartoons. These looks also appear in email marketing campaigns. Check out some of Really Good Emails' most popular offerings and see for yourself.
5 steps to use the Word rendering engine to do cool things
While you can always use MSO Styles to manually code stylized text for Outlook emails, there is a quicker way to generate the code. Believe it or not, you're basically designing it right in Word.
Here's how Mark explained the process in five steps:
- Open Microsoft Word and create stylized text.
- Mark chose an embossed yellow font with a reflection.
- Save the Word document with your stylized text as a web page.
- Open this HTML file in a web browser so you can view the code.
- Right-click and select View Page Source to locate and copy the MSO styles and text from the HTML file.
- Paste the code into your email editor where you want it to appear.
You'll then need to send a test email to Outlook or create an email preview using an email testing tool to see how your stylized text renders. Here's what Mark's test email said:
Mark points out that the snippet you are taking from Word contains a lot of unnecessary code that you can and should remove to clean it up. He also adds that because it's still live text, screen readers can easily pick it up for recipients with accessibility concerns.
You may have noticed that the little WordArt icon in the latest versions of Microsoft Word doesn't offer exactly the same options as those fantastically fancy fonts from the '90s. Do not worry. You can also go back in time and relive the beginnings of design.
Justin Pot wrote an article for Popular Science explaining how to get back to this retro WordArt. It's just a matter of saving a file as a Word 97-2004 file (or .doc instead of .docx) and opening it in compatibility mode.
“This allows you to achieve those truly crazy word art effects that we all remember so fondly from the 1990s. We all did that instead of doing our homework or work before things like social media and online sports betting distracted us from our tasks.”
Justin Pot, writer, popular science
Bonus: Easily create VMLs with MS Word
Mark’s tips don’t end there either. He also showed us how you can use shapes and drawings in the word processor to generate Vector Markup Language (VML) images for the Word rendering engine to display in emails.
Most email developers include a VML namespace declaration in the HTML tag of each email to support the use of vector images in Outlook emails. Mark's trick lets you quickly add shapes like stars to an Outlook email using Word, but you can also try adding icons, charts, and more.
Mark says he's just started exploring the possibilities of the Word rendering engine, and he recommends you play around with it too.
“See what you can do and experiment with it some more because Outlook is just so often forgotten. You're just trying to make something passable. But we can actually improve it and do something cool with it.”
Mark Robbins, software engineer, Parcel
Why the Word rendering engine's days are numbered
We should mention that the future of email may eventually see an end to the use of the Word rendering engine. That's because a new Microsoft Outlook for desktop uses a web browser engine just like other email clients.
That doesn't mean that versions of Outlook that use the Word rendering engine are going away any time soon. We all know how long it takes to update software, and older Outlook installations will be available for years to come.
Mark talked about this in his talk at Email Camp in 2023. The session also encouraged email developers to “stop putting Outlook first.” That's because it may prevent you from accomplishing everything possible in your email inbox. Even if you don't prioritize Outlook, you can still design a cool experience for Outlook users.
More from Mark Robbins and Parcel.io
Look for Mark at email industry events, follow him on Twitter/X @M_J_Robbins (he recently moved to Mastodon instead). He also helps developers like you and me in the Email Geeks Slack community.
Here are a few more videos from Mark to watch:
And finally – here’s a special treat for NFTD viewers from the folks at Parcel.io:
As you heard at the end of the episode, Mark Robbins and Parcel are offering our fans free trials of Parcel Pro. Parcel is one of my favorite email development tools and I highly recommend giving it a try.
How Email on Acid can help with Outlook emails
While we're talking about tools for email developers, I have to mention that Email on Acid can be a huge advantage, especially when it comes to optimizing emails for Outlook.
If you want to test how an email will appear in Outlook or any of the most popular clients and devices, our email previews provide you with accurate screenshots for you to review. With unlimited trials on every plan, you can experiment with Word and preview as many emails as you want.
If you're wondering whether it's worth programming emails specifically for Outlook users, our advanced email analysis can help you. You'll get a breakdown of the clients and devices your subscribers use to view your emails, as well as many other advanced insights like read, skim, and delete rates to measure email engagement. Additionally, our email accessibility checks ensure that every subscriber can interact with what you send.
Finally, thank you for being fans of Notes for the Dev. We love making the show and we plan to revamp and relaunch it in the coming months. Make sure you subscribe to Email on Acid's YouTube channel so you don't miss it.
Author: Megan Boshuyzen
Megan is a graphic designer and email developer who has worked on all aspects of email marketing. She believes that good emails for good causes make a positive difference in the world. Megan currently works as an email developer for Sinch Email. Visit their website and learn more at megbosh.com.
Create your very own Auto Publish News/Blog Site and Earn Passive Income in Just 4 Easy Steps
