8

I'm sending a HTML email from Outlook to my mail.live.com account. When I view the results in mail.live.com using Firefox the email looks ok, but when I use IE all the content is centered.

I have added lots of align=left and inline CSS style='text-align:left' to control it but it doesn't make any difference.

When I load the HTML file directly into IE it's ok; only when viewing from my Live/Hotmail account it is skewed.

Has anyone had this issue?

 <html> 
 <body style='background:#333;font-family:arial;text-align:left;'>

        <style>

            #BlueStripe {

                color:#000000;
                background:#113399;
                width:800px;
                height:35px;

            }


            #Content {
                width:800px;

            }
            #LeftContentPanel {
                border:none;

                padding:20px;
                padding-top:5px;
            }

            #LeftContentPanel h1, h2, h3 {
                color:#113399;
                font-family:Arial,Verdana;
                font-weight:normal;
                margin-bottom:5px;

            }   
            #LeftContentPanel p {
                margin-top:5px;
            }   

            h1, h2 {
                font-weight:normal;
                font-size:22px;
                padding-bottom:0px;

            }
            #RightContentPanel {

                width:220px;
                padding:10px;

                margin-top:10px;
                margin-right:30px;

                color:#fff;

                font-weight:normal;

            }
            #RightContentPanel h1, h2 {
                font-weight:normal;
                font-size:20px;
                margin-top:5px;
                margin-bottom:-5px;

            }

            #RightContentPanel p {
                font-weight:normal;
                font-size:14px;

            }



            .edition {
                text-align:left;
                font-family:Arial,Verdana;
                font-weight:normal;
                font-size:16px;
                color:#113399;
                margin-left:10px;
                margin-top:15px;

            }

            #FooterText {
                color:#113399;
                font-size:12px;
            }

            p {
                text-align:left;

            }


    </style>


        <table border='0' Id='PageWidth' Style='border:0px;width:800px;background:#fff;text-align:left;' cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 align='center'>
            <tr>
                <td>
                    <table border='0'  Style='border:0px;width:800px;' cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 align='left'>

                        <tr Id='BlueStripe' Width='800'>
                            <td ColSpan='3'></td>
                        </tr>


                        <!-- Header -->
                        <tr id='LogoTitle' align='Left'>
                            <!--  Col 1/2 -->   <td align='left'>
                                                    <img src='logo.jpg' alt='club logo' />
                                                </td> <!-- Col 1 -->
                            <!--  Col 2/2 -->   <td class='Panel2' ColSpan='2'>
                                                    <br />
                                                    <img src='title.jpg' alt='club news' />
                                                    <br />
                                                    <br />
                                                    <p class='edition' align='left'>Edition 9 – September 2011</p></td> <!-- Col 2 -->
                        </tr>
                        <!-- Banner Image - Dumb Bells -->
                        <tr Id='BannerImage'  Style='width:800px;'>
                            <!--  Col 1/1 --> 
                            <td ColSpan='3' Width='800px' Style='width:800px;text-align:left;' CellSpacing='0' CellPadding='0'  align='Left'>
                                <img src='banner.jpg' alt='Dumb Bells' Width='800px' />


                            </td> <!-- Col 1 -->
                        </tr>
                        <tr Id='Content' align='Left'>
                            <!--  Col 1/1 --> 
                            <td ColSpan='3'>
                                <br />
                                <table id='ContentPanel' Style='margin-top:10px'>
                                    <tr  align='Left'>
                                        <td align='Left'>
                                            <table id='' Style='border:0;text-align:left' align='left'>
                                                <tr>
                                                    <td Id='LeftContentPanel' Width='460'>
                                                        <h1>Insert heading here</h1>
                                                        <p>
                                                            Vellant enes mo volupition eati amenima ximpor andis es mil mi,
                                                            optate cum in niatqui dellabo. Turiti quos debis demolen dustis
                                                            que peditat iorione quidignimin non con eaquatia nullore perit,
                                                            totat incimol orrum, coriassequo quia aut eos unt quia dolent
                                                            estemquodio odionseque esed que dolupta sperror sit quia que
                                                            pa dipsape llore, nitiis audi de nonse nisqui quia velit estem rem
                                                            quam rerum autem voluptiae atur?
                                                        </p>
                                                        <h1>Insert heading here</h1>
                                                        <p>
                                                            Feremos quisinte siment. Cium volorpo ressit re, omnisci as
                                                            autent as moluptas nonsece atquaessit eum dolut aut quis
                                                            nobisto quat aborem quis antempore, id moluptatur, sa que et
                                                            ea ium apis delignisi te si aut poribus ullaudae od quia conem
                                                            se verepud itatemporum ulparum re, volut velis eatis es accum
                                                            aut ratur, vende ius si doloriorum ent qui que velesciat que nam,
                                                            alitem ati a non remperorest restrum volentintem voluptatur am
                                                            rem eumqui quat et ea quiame quat.
                                                        </p>
                                                        <p>
                                                            Occatem poreium in rehentio eat el earia iur am, et laborio.
                                                            Itatur? Quiae estiorecese conseque niet estem as etusciur mos
                                                            ipsapid que videbit audit quid ut volupta sperias sequate ctotat
                                                            et et voluptis dellest, simus, secus aute quis iliquis si quia simus.
                                                        </p>

                                                        <div id='FooterText'>
                                                            more text here
                                                        </div>

                                                    </td>
                                                </tr>
                                            </table>

                                        </td>
                                        <td Width=5></td>
                                        <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding:15px;text-align:left'>
                                            <table  Id='RightContentPanel' Style='text-align:left;' >
                                                <tr style='padding:15px;text-align:left'>






                                                    <td style='margin-top:0px;padding:5px;padding:15px;text-align:left;padding-top:5px;   background-color:#113399;'>
                                                            <h1>Insert header here</h1>
                                                            <p align='left' style='text-align:left'>
                                                                Vellant enes mo volupition eati
                                                                amenima ximpor andis es mil
                                                                mi, optate cum in niatqui de
                                                                llabo. Turiti quos debis demo
                                                                len dustis que peditat iorione
                                                                quidignimin non con eaquatia
                                                                nullore perit, totat incimol or
                                                                rum, coriassequo quia aut eos
                                                                unt quia dolent estemquodio.
                                                            </p>
                                                    </td>
                                                </tr>
                                                <tr>
                                                    <td height='35'>
                                                    </td>
                                                </tr>
                                                <tr>

                                                    <td Style='margin-top:30px;padding-top:5px;padding:5px;padding:15px;text-align:left;background-color:#ff3333;'>
                                                            <h1>Insert header here</h1>
                                                            <p>
                                                                Vellant enes mo volupition eati
                                                                amenima ximpor andis es mil
                                                                mi, optate cum in niatqui de
                                                                llabo. Turiti quos debis demo
                                                                len dustis que peditat iorione
                                                                quidignimin non con eaquatia
                                                                nullore perit, totat incimol or
                                                                rum, coriassequo quia aut eos
                                                                unt quia dolent estemquodio.
                                                            </p>                                        

                                                    </td>
                                                </tr>
                                            </table>

                                        </td>
                                    </tr>
                                </table>


                            </td> <!-- End Col 1 -->

                        </tr>       
                        <tr>
                            <td Id='BlueStripe' ColSpan='3'></td>
                        </tr>               
                    </table>
                </td>
            </tr>               
        </table>
</body>


Additional information from another user:

None of the answers so far seem to help. I had my top level stacked tables centered and all the nested tables aligned left with text-align:left; on all possible elements and it didn't change anything.

Then I removed all instances of centered text and tables throughout the code and it STILL renders with centered text in all web email clients in IE 9. Interestingly, if I send the email from Gmail or Yahoo in IE 9, it renders properly (without having to add all the extra align/text-align lefts). However, this email must originate from Outlook, so that isn't a feasible workaround in this case.

Adam Lear
  • 38,111
  • 12
  • 81
  • 101
IEnumerable
  • 3,610
  • 14
  • 49
  • 78
  • will align="left" in the body tag not have an effect? – Philip Bevan Mar 16 '12 at 17:06
  • what mechanism do you use to send it? is it an HTML file attachment? or some other way? – dldnh Mar 18 '12 at 15:09
  • You are stating that the email you sent from Outlook is being tested from your mail.live.com. Did you try to send it to another free mail server (mail.google.com for example) and see how the email message is being rendered in IE. May be the issue is in the container HTML element ? – Ahmed Hashem Mar 21 '12 at 11:34

7 Answers7

6

Try putting a head tag in and end you HTML tag. Also put your style in your header tag. I did this and tried it in IE Hotmail and it worked for me.

Joshua Curci
  • 218
  • 3
  • 11
4

There is probably a conflicting id/class in your html though that should have resulted in the same effect in all browsers.

It is impossible to tell you what is going on in your browser. Try inspecting the elements with the browsers debugging tools, this should tell you what styles are being applied to them and they should reveal where the text-align is coming from.

In Internet Explorer the shortcut for the debugging tool is F12, use the arrow in the left top of that window to be able to focus on certain elements.

sg3s
  • 9,411
  • 3
  • 36
  • 52
4

HTML emails are a nightmare, I have built many, many, many of them. Have you inspected the code when it renders in IE?

I found that Live/Hotmail renders differently even depending on the version of IE - let alone other browsers.

Also, and this will probably sound insulting - but have you validated the code?

Cheers

mrbirch
  • 81
  • 4
3

As annoying as this sounds, try adding an inline text-align: left; on the paragraph tags.

For future reference, the HTML Email Boilerplate is a great base for those dreaded HTML email projects.

Matt Stein
  • 3,053
  • 1
  • 19
  • 35
3

I know this question is old, but for future reference, I did notice that the containing the main text does not have align="left" specified. Even though it is nested within other TDs that DO align=:left", sucky IE won't inherit that setting.

 <!--  Col 1/1 --> 

              <table id='' Style='border:0;text-align:left' align='left'>
              <tr>
               <td Id='LeftContentPanel' Width='460' [ALIGN="LEFT" NEEDED HERE]>
               <h1>Insert heading here</h1>
Haikukitty
  • 162
  • 2
  • 15
  • But it does honor the css style `text-align:left` which should work in the way it is used in the code snippet. – sg3s Mar 21 '12 at 18:59
  • It should, but I've had IE default to centered text even within an align-left table. The TD tag above doesn't specifically specify either style="text-align:left" or "align=left" unless I'm missing something. – Haikukitty Mar 26 '12 at 23:56
1

CSS support in e-mail clients is terrible. Unfortunately sending via outlook will probably make it even worse. You may wish to consider using a service like mail chimp, but I'm guessing you've probably already thought of that and sending via outlook is a requirement of the project, so here are a few possible options (I feel your pain, I've had to fix similar things).

As a general rule of thumb code your pages as though it's 1999, I've found the campaign monitor resources invaluable.

Here is a handy guide on general good practices: http://www.campaignmonitor.com/design-guidelines/

A full break down of css support: http://www.campaignmonitor.com/design-guidelines/

And the forums are pretty handy: http://www.campaignmonitor.com/forums/

Don't worry I don't work for campaign monitor! Just things I've found useful.

A couple of things spring to mind that you could try:

Perhaps wrap your text in div's and put inline text-align:left. Or perhaps on the p tag.

I'm guessing the outer table is for centring the design? Perhaps look at an alternative techniques for centring the outer.

Alex KeySmith
  • 16,657
  • 11
  • 74
  • 152
0
<body style="text-align:left;">

Works like a charm. And you do not have to put it throughout the email.