I write HTML in Thunderbird because I like some rich formatting (an area I am sad to admit Thunderbird is weak on). In particular I do a lot of indented stuff, which Thunderbird translates to simple “<blockquote>” tags. However, when I moved to Outlook 2007 (which I don’t use for mail, but was just checking) and looked at my mail, I saw the “<blockquotes>” were ignored, instead Outlook, which uses “Word” for its HTML formatting, expects to see these done through CSS “<div>” tags (yikes!).
So, I got to looking and sent myself a simple one line, “Hello world” email from Outlook. Here’s what Outlook rendered it as:
1234567891011121314151617181920212223242526272829303132333435363738394041424344454647484950515253545556575859606162 <span style="font-family: Courier New,Courier,monospace;">--_000_E67AF5DC51DDCF4A9C6A9867888AACF95052483E39EXMAIL02winco_Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printableHello world.--_000_E67AF5DC51DDCF4A9C6A9867888AACF95052483E39EXMAIL02winco_Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii"Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable<html xmlns:v=3D"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o=3D"urn:schemas-micr=osoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w=3D"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" =xmlns:m=3D"http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml" xmlns=3D"http:=//www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><head><META HTTP-EQUIV=3D"Content-Type" CONTENT=3D"text/html; charset=3Dus-ascii"=><meta name=3DGenerator content=3D"Microsoft Word 12 (filtered medium)"><style><!--/* Font Definitions */@font-face{font-family:"Cambria Math";panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;}@font-face{font-family:Calibri;panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;}/* Style Definitions */p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal{margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";}a:link, span.MsoHyperlink{mso-style-priority:99;color:blue;text-decoration:underline;}a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed{mso-style-priority:99;color:purple;text-decoration:underline;}span.EmailStyle17{mso-style-type:personal-compose;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:windowtext;}.MsoChpDefault{mso-style-type:export-only;}@page Section1{size:8.5in 11.0in;margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;}div.Section1{page:Section1;}--></style><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml><o:shapedefaults v:ext=3D"edit" spidmax=3D"1026" /></xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml><o:shapelayout v:ext=3D"edit"><o:idmap v:ext=3D"edit" data=3D"1" /></o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></span>
12345678910111213141516 <span style="font-family: Courier New,Courier,monospace;"></head><body lang=3DEN-US link=3Dblue vlink=3Dpurple><div class=3DSection1><p class=3DMsoNormal>Hello world.<span style=3D'font-size:12.0pt;font-famil=y:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=3DMsoNormal><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p></div></body></span></html>
Yikes again!
I’ll grant you Word offers a lot more in terms of formatting, but that’s out of control. I guess these guys may have a point!:
http://fixoutlook.org/
http://www.email-standards.org/
Hilarious!
You sound like you think that using blockquotes for indentation is a good idea. Why?
You’re probably right – blockquote isn’t the best choice. Mostly I just wish they would agree…
Thanks.