Outlook 2010 overriding font-family from Arial to Times New Roman

Question

I'm programmatically sending HTML-formatted email, and setting the font as Arial throughout (font-family: Arial;). When the messages arrive in Outlook 2010, text in table elements is in Times New Roman. Text in div elements is fine in Arial. If I View Source, copy into an HTML file, and view in a browser, all fonts function as expected (it's all Arial).

Some Google results show that Outlook will fall back to its default font (Times New Roman) when none is specified, but that's not what's happening here.

Why is Outlook forcing my email to display in Times New Roman when specified otherwise?

score 67 · Accepted Answer · answered May 06 '12 at 02:05

67

Even if you set font-family: arial to table, it still wont work. You need to specifically set the font for each td inside your table to get it right.

answered May 06 '12 at 02:05

defau1t

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I really hoped this wasn't the right answer but it did the trick, cheers! – daddywoodland Aug 16 '12 at 15:15
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This is correct, Outlook doesn't seem to pick up the parent element's styling. You have to style the current container or the text reverts to defaults. – aaandre Nov 19 '12 at 19:33
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I assume `td{font-family:arial}` isn't what you mean? – Thomas Ahle Jun 26 '14 at 12:53
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@ThomasAhle: yes you are right. You have to give inline styles and not styles in style block or external file. – defau1t Jun 26 '14 at 15:27
Solution by @Userpassword works well for Outlook if that is the only target. – Ramanpreet Singh Apr 14 '16 at 18:00

score 29 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 25 '14 at 09:57

29

<!--[if mso]>
<style> body,table tr,table td,a, span,table.MsoNormalTable {  font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif !important;  }</style>
<!--<![endif]-->

answered Apr 25 '14 at 09:57

user956584

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This should be the accepted answer. Working in Outlook 2016 as well. – drec4s Apr 05 '18 at 13:41
Just tested on outlook 2007, 2010, 2016, 2019. This 1 liner works well – gray Nov 27 '21 at 16:46

score 10 · Answer 3 · answered May 04 '12 at 22:54

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The table in question was nested in a div that had font-family:Arial; in its style, but the table did not have a font set. So tables don't inherit fonts (and perhaps other things) from their containers in HTML emails in some clients.

answered May 04 '12 at 22:54

Tom Hamming

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It's enough to set font for table. Every div is ont needed. Tested on Outlook 2010 – Tomas Tintera Oct 30 '12 at 15:52

score 6 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 02 '13 at 18:03

6

This issue was happening from outlook 2007 and the previous solutions didn't work for me, the only solution that seems to work is wrapping the text with <font face="arial, sans-serif">My text with arial</font>

answered Apr 02 '13 at 18:03

Grekz

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Thank you! I had a table with the font specified for every td and it was turning the first row into Times New Roman. The font tag around the offending text fixed it. – Evil Pigeon Aug 22 '16 at 08:51

score 2 · Answer 5 · answered Jan 30 '13 at 07:30

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If you're working with Outlook 2007, you must define font-family on table . Otherwise it will set to default serif font.

answered Jan 30 '13 at 07:30

Endrian

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score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Jun 27 '13 at 15:54

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The <font> tag is deprecated but since Outlook 2010 is removing (almost all) styles, this is the only way it works.

answered Jun 27 '13 at 15:54

user2528858

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score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Nov 13 '13 at 15:45

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table.MsoNormalTable {font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} Open your HTML with Text Pad, and change it to Arial.

answered Nov 13 '13 at 15:45

Luuci

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score 1 · Answer 8 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:25

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None of above methods worked for me, using a custom font linked with @font-face. had to work with conditional tags for Outlook. Took me quite some time to figure out how exactly. So I've set up a code example: I was still having some troubles implementing this in my situation so I've shared a code example for this: https://stackoverflow.com/a/21626196/135654

edited May 23 '17 at 12:25

Community

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answered Feb 07 '14 at 11:33

tvgemert

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score 1 · Answer 9 · answered Jul 29 '15 at 07:09

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You can put your style to "span" tag, It will works good.

   <td>
       <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"></span>
   </td>

answered Jul 29 '15 at 07:09

Justin

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score 0 · Answer 10 · answered Oct 16 '15 at 20:58

0

I had the same problem....all text in the body of the email was Arial, but the table defaulted to word. I had to wrap the font in each each cell......time consuming..

answered Oct 16 '15 at 20:58

user5455429

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Outlook 2010 overriding font-family from Arial to Times New Roman

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