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- steven401, on 10/12/2007, -4/+20That's silly, why would they use Microsoft Word and not Internet Explorer? Because they know if they use Internet Explorer people could get spyware just from opening an e-mail? :)
- Khlept0, on 10/12/2007, -5/+20Uhhh, we blocked HTML emails a while ago.
Too many phishing attempts and exploits in MS software. - Khlept0, on 10/12/2007, -6/+20HTML emails should have been killed a long time ago. I want to punch myself in the face every time someone sends me an e-mail full of crap.
plain text FTW. - teamparadox, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13I use outlook 2007 and havent noticed any issues in emails that use HTML.
- xinit, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9I seem to have broken my fake-surprise face, so I'm unable to employ it at this time.
- Khlept0, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9That works as well
As long as I'm not forced to look at frilly backgrounds and 2mb images in the body of an email. - sundancekid503, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9I've been using Outlook 2007 for quite a while and haven't had any problem with their HTML email rendering. Many of the things this article complains about are silly. I don't think emails SHOULD have forms, flash animations, animated GIFs, plugins, etc.
If Outlook 2007 DID display these things, we'd probably just have another article complaining about how "bloated" the email client is with useless features. People will never be happy. - paladin144, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7At my job we send out a lot enewsletters so this will definitely hurt our ability to send out cool looking stuff. We ONLY do legitimate non-spam mailings to targeted lists of people, with easy ways to unsubscribe. Not everything flashy is spam. In fact, most of the spam in my inbox looks as though it was designed by monkeys only vaguely familiar with HTML.
This is a huge step backwards from Microsoft. I thought tech companies were supposed to move things forward? At this rate Outlook 2012 will feature Netscape 4.7's HTML rendering engine. - ozziedog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I do emails for major business clients and the one thing that gets me is no animated gifs. Previously I had kept emails as table formatted and did not use CSS. But getting rid of animation is going to dissappoint a lot of clients. Honestly I don't know why most of you diggers hate graphic enhanced emails. The point of design is to make the emails easier to read. Reading plain text on a computer is not fun, nor a good way to communicate. If it was, the stuff you get in the mail or the ads you see would be plain text as well.
The complaints you people seem to have is for bad design. The solution is this, some organization like a post office must charge a rate of 1 cent per graphic email charged to the sender. Genuine business would have no problem with that and it would kick the hell out of spammers/phishers. Some of this money should go to font foundries so that the emails can access a real font and not have to be limited to the basic set of poorly designed fonts that come with PC's.
A well designed email is better than plain text and you can't improve design by removing it. - jaycliche, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I like it when you have a choice with each sender of who's html you'll see...like gmail.
- ozziedog, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Why stop with emails? Why not plain text ads, billboards, and TV commercials? Why not plain text, un-illustrated instruction manuals? Same for websites. Lets go back to whatever they called the internet when it was plain green text on a black field. That's why you stupid *****.
- SuperSloth, on 10/12/2007, -5/+10"ripping out the IE-based rendering engine that Outlook has always used for email"
Outlook has used Word to render non-text emails by default since Office 2000. Marked as inaccurate. - Zero456, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9Seems that Microsoft is taking notes from Sony...
- ZennZero, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6DISA, one of the governing organizations that regulates DoD networks, has recently mandated that HTML rendering be disabled in Outlook. While I am not suggesting this has anything to do with Microsoft's change, the US Govt. is their single biggest customer, so perhaps that influenced their priorities.
- masamunecyrus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6@kutsal: This has nothing to do with trying to "be" the standard, nor does it have anything to do with rival clients. It appears to be a "we can't fix the security holes in Outlook 2007 and so ***** you, we're not going to support HTML e-mails at all, anymore" problem.
- mre5765, on 10/12/2007, -6/+10html email sux and is a security hole.
- calvmari, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"HTML emails should have been killed a long time ago. I want to punch myself in the face every time someone sends me an e-mail full of crap.
plain text FTW."
I disagree. I use HTML emails often to respond to emails with diagrams to help my point. When we have a long Re: chain going, I like scrolling down and seeing the diagrams in past emails as we discuss an issue further. With attachments these diagrams are lost and I have to dig up old emails. - majordanger, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Another case of the bad folks (spammers) forcing companies to dumb down equipment.
I cuss that Tylenol-Tainter from 20 years ago every time I try to open any consumable product. - 35263526, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Wrong. Badly made HTML emails suck. HTML emails opened in insecure renderers suck. HTML email itself is a brilliant multimedia-ready communictions format.
- trm3446, on 10/12/2007, -7/+11Jeez, Microsoft, are you TRYING to find ways to piss people off? I can't believe they would do that.
- joeyrutledge, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5This isn't intended to be a flame but this is probably good news. HTML in email is responsible for the majority of spam on the interweb.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I genuinely can't understand why anyone is in the slightest bit suprised by this. You'd have to be REALLY stupid to be suprised at this.
For the idiots: MICROSOFT MAKE BADLY DESIGNED AND ENGINEERED, OVERPRICED, SLOW, INEFFICIENT, RUBBISH THAT *JUST* *DOESN'T* *WORK*.
GOT IT?!!! - ozziedog, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4One parting shot. Any of you anti-htmlers programmers? I'd like to see you do your work using nothing but simple text.
- jaycliche, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6"It's just that, it becomes problematic when you include those pesky users that use the whatchamacallit email program.. Oh yeah Thunderbird.. Instead of the standard, which is Outlook.."
Yeah gmail or yahoo or apple...little fly by night companies like that. - pumkinut, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5I really fail to see what the problem is. What the hell is wrong with plain text email?
- ozziedog, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3"If you've sent an E-Mail that has more in its formatting than bold, italics, underlines, or hyperlinks you've already gone too far"
Really. So when did you become such an authority on design? ***** you, Bill Gates and everyone of you haughty "I know what's best" *****. - daverp, on 10/16/2007, -4/+6Dam I am shocked. Microsoft actually did a smart thing. HTML email is a security issue. By limiting the functions and taking it out of IE they improve security. Any IE flaw found can no longer be exploited via email. Microsoft actually did the smart thing for once, I'm totally shocked.
Scoreboard: MS - 2 Apple/Linux - 9,984,392 - BenBenMan, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5What's the problem? Disabling HTML email is a good idea ... not just for the security holes, and the phishing, but to block out annoying people who insist on giant sigs consisting of their name in size 72 orange (on red) Jokerman font, surrounded by 10 oversized images from some random external server.
Using HTML email to, for example, make a certain part bold or change the font colour somewhere for emphasis, is fine, but remember that lots of people abuse it. - 35263526, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Nope, that option is gone in 2k7.
- deadbaby, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4This could be a good security choice. I dunno the details of Word's HTML render but I'm guessing it's probably quite simplified and basic (images, text formatting, etc) Might be a good thing in the long run.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I would make the HTML support an option that you have to turn on. On default, only plain text emails will be supported. The majority of email users do not need HTML email. This way you eliminate the problem of phishing but still leave html emails as an option for those who do need it.
- ozziedog, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3"block out annoying people who insist on giant sigs consisting of their name in size 72 orange (on red) Jokerman font, surrounded by 10 oversized images from some random external server"
Just because the people who email you are design idiots doesn't mean the rest of the world is. It must be the field you are in. I am a designer and I have never received an email that looked like that from anyone. As well, I don't get porn or viagra spam. If you have a problem with someone's email design, let them know you think it's bad. As that CSS is the main victim, I don't see how this will stop 72 point orange type on a red background with the images embedded instead of called from a server. It won't stop bad design, it'll just make good design that much harder. Wake the ***** up. - geronimo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3It would be nice to see an emailHTML standard, much like mobile phones have their mobile XHTML standard. Give Microsoft any leg room and they'll wiggle out of it. No background images sorta gets me upset. That adds a lot of value to a mailing list for your customers and most if not all readers allow you to enable image viewing per sender, with no images being displayed by default. So that case is already handled.
- Lazybones, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5 * no support for background images (HTML or CSS) (Good no hard to read backgrounds on them)
* no support for forms (WHO THE HELL WOULD SUBMIT A FORM IN AN EMAIL??? SPAM/Phishing...)
* no support for Flash, or other plugins (GREAT!)
* no support for CSS floats (Good no popups)
* no support for replacing bullets with images in unordered lists (Attach a rich format document if you want fancy bullits)
* no support for CSS positioning (Not a web site)
* no support for animated GIFs (PERFECT!)
So they will let you format some text with color, and line it up. Sounds perfect for email. All this other S#@T shouldn't be allowed anyway. Hell as stated by others some companies enforce TEXT only mode. - 83457, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I'm not personally a huge fan of HTML email but many of our clients like to use email templates in our email system that look like their stationary. Many of these templates rely on background images and colors with nested tables for proper vertical stretching. These templates just can't be created to work properly without these basic features.
- calvmari, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Please don't comment on people who are likely to be blocked. I'd rather block him and read the good comments, rather than block him, and see 4 consecutive posts about someone I don't want to hear about. Thank you!
- drwtsn32, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4"Get Mac's and smarter employees. Only idiots fall for phishing."
Only idiots pluralize words with an apostrophe. - lorax, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3From the article...
The limitations imposed by Word 2007 are described in detail in the article, but here are a few highlights:
* no support for background images (HTML or CSS)
* no support for forms
* no support for Flash, or other plugins
* no support for CSS floats
* no support for replacing bullets with images in unordered lists
* no support for CSS positioning
* no support for animated GIFs
...nothing I'll miss. Crisis over; move along folks. - flake, on 10/12/2007, -8/+9I think you hit the nail on the head...regardless if there were many fixes in IE7, the word render-er is much simpler and flat out doesn't support the dangerous elements that make HTML mail bad in the first place. They should have done this long ago IMO.
What's really funny is if U look at all the the people here commenting WTF and etc... you broke my rendering and then in the same breath criticize the insecurity.
Email should have stayed plain text, in the vast majority of cases, formatting adds absolutely nothing and, in fact, detracts from the information contained in the email. Not only that, it makes it much, much easier for spammers... Thankfully, most newsletters are available in plain text format and for those that aren't Outlook 2003+ and Thunderbird both offer a "Display all email in plain text" option. The thunderbird stripper works remarkably well with well under 1% of mails requiring a view in original format. :) - ozziedog, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Sorry geronimo I accidentally undugg you. I couldn't agree more.
- surfing, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Does Outlook 2007 have the option to not use Word as your editor?
Older version let you:
Tools > Options... > Select the "Mail Format" tab > Uncheck the "Use Microsoft Office Word..." check boxes - cdharrison, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2HTML emails suck, but they are a fact of life. This is a step back, imho. But then, I use gMail (which treats modern markup like it's still 1993!) so who cares?
- sarahsboy18, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Once again Microsoft makes a decision without weighing the effects on its customers... MS always knows what's best. Ugh... I'm just so sick of the arrogance.
- bemenaker, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Good for them, in fact, take out ALL HTML rendering from the email. Keep HTML where it belongs, on webpages, and out of my f******* inbox!!!!!!
- calvmari, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@OBKenobi
It sounds like you're wearing a tin foil hat. If I were developing a product that was part of a suite (Office 2007), I'd likely use other resources in that suite when I can. If you're using OpenOffice, I highly doubt you'd be using Outlook as well. - Toast1185, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I don't really care if outlook doesn't have great HTML support. I can't even think of a reason why I would want it in my e-mail. E-mail is about quick, concise communication, not bogging me down while I'm clearing out my inbox. If I need to see some fancy html, send me a link to a web page. The only thing I have ever seen that include HTML are ostentatious newsletters, spam and phising.
- honds, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4Or Evolution or Eudora... did we cover all the bases yet? I think there are still more.
- newbill123, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3What was the justification for making IE part of the Operating System again? What did they say to anti-trust investigators? No, not that they wanted to kill Netscape. Wasn't it something about a common rendering engine being necessary for
Whatever problem MS is trying to solve, this seems the most annoying may to go. They aren't turning off HTML rendering alltogether; just breaking the standard it in arbitrary ways. - OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1[quote]or Eudora... [/quote]
Eudora is now based on Thunderbird and is getting a name change to Penelope.
http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=20078 - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yo ozziedog, what the hell is your problem? Pour the hate on M$ for sure, but why attack fellow diggers so aggresively?
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