Microsoft Outlook 2007 to use Word HTML engine

Posted on Monday, January 15 2007 @ 22:30 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck

Quite surprising news today about Outlook 2007. It looks like Microsoft's Office team replaced the IE-based rendering engine with Microsoft Word:

That’s right. Instead of taking advantage of Internet Explorer 7, Outlook 2007 uses the very limited support for HTML and CSS that is built into Word 2007 to display HTML email messages.

Having tested the two public beta versions of Outlook 2007 late last year, I knew there was something screwy going on. Many of the newsletters I subscribed to had become unreadable, and SitePoint’s own publications (including the Tech Times) were looking decidedly unhealthy. I dutifully reported these rendering issues with the feedback mechanisms provided in the beta, and wrote them off as Internet Explorer 7 integration issues that would be resolved in the final release.

This is unbelievable. Take a look at what's no longer possible in Outlook 2007 because if uses the Word 2007 engine:

no support for background images (HTML or CSS)
no support for forms
no support for Flash, or other plugins
no support for CSS floats
no support for replacing bullets with images in unordered lists
no support for CSS positioning
no support for animated GIFs

About the Author

Thomas De Maesschalck

Thomas has been messing with computer since early childhood and firmly believes the Internet is the best thing since sliced bread. Enjoys playing with new tech, is fascinated by science, and passionate about financial markets. When not behind a computer, he can be found with running shoes on or lifting heavy weights in the weight room.

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Re: Microsoft Outlook 2007 to use Word HTML engine
by Anonymous on Monday, January 15 2007 @ 23:55 CET

I haven't tested Office 2007 yet but lets hope that the new Word doesn't produce the same kind of crapHTML as its predecessors. The HTML of Word 2000 for instance was unbelievable bulky.

Re: Microsoft Outlook 2007 to use Word HTML engine
by Anonymous on Tuesday, January 16 2007 @ 4:42 CET

You know, most of us send pretty simple emails, and the only REAL reason why such a simple HTML engine is a bummer is that the spammers can't send flash emails.

OH WELL! Life's rough.

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