[ZendTo] Strange HTML output in MS Outlook

Wed May 10 10:31:19 BST 2017

But I already override that CSS property at the top of 
email_header_html.tpl:

<html>
<head>
   <meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" http-equiv="Content-Type">
   <style>
     {fetch file="../www/css/{#CSSTheme#}.css"}
     {fetch file="../www/css/local.css"}
     {* Plus stuff we want to override for the emails *}
     {fetch file="../www/images/{#CSSTheme#}/background.png" 
assign='background'}
     body {
       background-image: 
url(data:image/png;base64,{$background|base64_encode});
     }

The {fetch} instructions are done on the ZendTo server as the email 
address is created. So the background-image is embedded as a data URI in 
the email message (which PHPMailer may convert to an attachment, which 
may be the cause of the problem).

So even though the Outlook client cannot fetch the original URL 
mentioned in the CSS, that property is overridden by an explicit CSS 
statement before the message body ever starts. And it *does* have the 
image that is mentioned in the new value of the "background-image" property.

So I think I'm saying that what I've written *should* work, according to 
the rules. Whether Outlook is following the rules, that's another matter 
entirely.

I must admit I only tested it on Thunderbird, where it works perfectly.

Any thoughts, anyone?

Cheers,
Jules.

On 08/05/2017 18:42, Ricky Boone wrote:
> I can see the same behavior in Outlook 2010.  This appears to be due
> to the default CSS embedded in the message:
>
> body {
> font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;
> background-repeat: repeat;
> background-image: url(../images/swish/background.png);
> background-color: #cbcccd;
> font-size: 10pt;
> margin:0;
> }
>
> Note, the background image doesn't work since it is a relative path,
> so you end up with just #cbcccd.  This seems to be dictated by
> ./www/css/swish.css and ./templates/email_header_html.tpl.  Not sure
> why it doesn't work in Gmail (or OWA 2013 from my environment), but I
> suspect it's due to either CSS processing rules within Gmail.  I
> remember seeing somewhere that there are some limits on CSS style
> block sizes, content, etc.
>
> Since the template appears to be pretty flexible, you should be able
> to edit the files to make them look the way you're wanting/expecting
> them to look.
>
> On Mon, May 8, 2017 at 10:51 AM, Everton Bruno Bernardi
> <ebbernardi at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hello Jules.
>>
>> First of all I would like to thank you so much for all the improvements
>> you've made to ZendTo! It's now a lot easier to setup and the HTML e-mails
>> are a real upgrade!
>>
>> I noticed a strange behaviour of HTML formatting for messages sent by ZendTo
>> in Microsoft Outlook.
>>
>> Please take a look at the image http://imgur.com/h0xDEuR
>> The grayish content doesn't appear in GMail.
>>
>> Am I missing something?
>>
>>
>> Kind regards.
>>
>> --
>> Everton Bruno Bernardi
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> ZendTo at zend.to
>> http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/zendto
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Jules

-- 
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