You may have noticed that some emails sent from Buildout appear differently when viewed in Microsoft Outlook when compared to other email clients, like Apple Mail, Gmail, and even Outlook.com. Most modern email clients render rich content using HTML and CSS, however, Microsoft Outlook (for desktop) renders emails in a limited capacity intended for print design, which can result in visual discrepancies.
While emails created in Buildout are designed to look modern and clean regardless of where they are viewed, some Outlook display issues may persist. To ensure proper visibility, we always recommend sending a test email to yourself before sending an email blast or campaign.
Issues that may arise
Images do not align properly
Due to the nature of how the desktop version of Outlook renders images, it is possible that your email may have images showing out of alignment. Outlook will ignore predefined padding and / or margins around images. This can result in overlap between your images and text or other content.
Images are displaying in the wrong size
Because Outlook does not render HTML as efficiently as more modern email clients, it is unable to recognize image size constraints. This means that if you uploaded an image, then resized it within the email editor, Outlook will display the image in its source size and format.
To prevent this from happening, you can resize the image before uploading to your email rather than resizing within the email.
Animations are not rendering
GIF images are unsupported by Outlook. Only still images will display in your emails when rendered in Outlook, so your animation will remain frozen at the first frame.
The margins in my email are larger than in the preview
Outlook pads images and other elements of your email in addition to what you may have defined when building the email. This can result in additional spacing on your email, or large gaps between content.
