Mailchimp - constrain image dimensions in outlook

Question

Im coding a mailchimp template for a client and I am running into problems with images dimensions

The problem is that images with widths greater then the template width (normally 600px) is shown at original size in outlook. I can trust my users to be able to handle such a weakness.

There is one way that works, and thats if the image dimensions are hard coded into the img-tag, although when changing image in mailchimp, the hard coded attributes are overrun. -So its not all Microsofts fault.

The closest I've come to a solution is found here: How to retain image dimensions in Mailchimp templates - But the OPs own accepted answer is incomplete.

Any smart suggestions? Spent days on this now and is starting to mistrust.

I tried this, was supposed to be foolproof, but when testing it with litmus it broke in Outlook 2010 and below:

 <!-- content1 -->
    <table mc:repeatable mc:variant="Section: item with image top and CTA" width="300" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" align="center" class="full-table" style="width:300px;">
        <tr>
            <td bgcolor="#FFFFFF" width="100%">
                <table width="100%">
                    <tr>
                        <td width="100%">
                            <img mc:edit="article_image" src="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/3517b92e77c79cf5a2a6072a3/images/c37645eb-f76b-44e9-88ab-f01b1929dda2.jpg" id="contact-photo" alt="" style="width:100%; max-width:100%;" width="300">
                        </td>
                    </tr>
                </table>
            </td>
        </tr>
    </table> 
<!-- end content1 -->

Hey David! Outlook is a horrible and angry beast. Let me upload something that works for me nearly every time for you. That being said though, Outlook TOTALLY IGNORES Image resize attributes in CSS. — scoopzilla, Feb 13 '17 at 17:01
Thanks scoopzilla, I have tried lots of little things, and they usually comprise of putting extra hard coded widths and inline max-widths everywhere. I have updated my post with my latest try! Looking forward to your code — David Lamm, Feb 14 '17 at 10:00
Here you go. I was making sure I had a template that would work for you. [Download on GIT](https://github.com/seanrawles/Mailchimp_Template) — scoopzilla, Feb 15 '17 at 19:38

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:02

I think your question might be kinda similar to this one Mailchimp affects my Outlook-specific conditional comments in HTML

I've had the same problem as you. Unfortunately after many many hours debugging en searching the web, I read the following on a MailChimp post:

Outlook doesn’t recognize the HTML that constrains images. This means that if you use HTML to resize an image uploaded to a campaign or template, it may display at the original size in Outlook. Be sure to resize your images before you upload them to MailChimp, or use our built-in image editor.

source: MailChimp Knowledge Base

I didn't really believe that this could actually be true so I kept trying to constrain the images. I've put fixed width on the img, td, tr, table.. nothing helped.

Sadly I can't really explain what happens, hopefully the link to the MC article gives you a better view on it. But my best answer is to set a max-width & width to your img and td anyway. And tell your client to resize the images to the allowed size. Setting a max-width and width will also display the #px when hovering over the editable image in your MailChimp editor. I also found out that when you do upload a bigger size, MailChimp throws a lil' warning.

If it may help in any way; see my code below that I used in my templates to make it fluid.

<table mc:repeatable mc:variant="Item with image top and CTA" width="650" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" align="center" class="full-table" style="width:650px;">
<tr>
  <td style="padding:30px 20px 40px 20px;" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
    <table width="100%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0">
      <tr>
        <td style="padding-bottom:15px;max-width:610px;">
          <img src="/images/img.jpg" alt="x" style="width:100%; max-width:610px;" width="610" mc:edit="article_image">
        </td>
      </tr>
    </tr>
  </table>
</td>

I have come to the same conclusion. It seems the only solution is to trust the users. Mailchimp should do something about this. Thanks — David Lamm, Feb 23 '17 at 18:59
@DavidLamm, it really should something about it, indeed! I couldn't believe it at first.. — Kevincore, Feb 24 '17 at 08:41

Mailchimp - constrain image dimensions in outlook

1 Answers1