Mashable reports on what some are decrying as the dumbest move Microsoft has made to date. The HTML rendering engine for Outlook 2010 is changing to the one used in Word, versus the one used in Internet Explorer as with previous versions. The Word rendering engine does what most perceive as a terrible job.
An important part of this story is going underreported: plain text email, a format in widespread use since the genesis of email in 1973, still works just fine, just like it always did. I’m not sure HTML ever was an appropriate format for use in email. It’s something that Netscape added to the email client and people started using it. How it took off in an era where home Internet access was dominated by telephone modems (back when there were myriad dial-up Internet providers, not just PeoplePC and a few isolated local companies) nobody may
ever truly figure out.
Many substantial uses of HTML in email are probably better served by uploading as a Web page and the email should simply be a link (individualized, if necessary) to that page. Some of these HTML emails with images take up a significant amount of space. Some link to the images on a Web server. If it’s worth doing that, why not just put the whole thing up as just a Web page?
Choices for those using Microsoft Outlook for email:
- Switch email clients to something besides Microsoft Outlook, such as Mozilla Thunderbird.
- Switch email preferences to plain text where available, drop email lists that do not have a plain text option, tell contacts not to send email in HTML, and quit sending HTML email.
- Maintain the status quo and deal with the brokenness.
Choices for those not using Microsoft Outlook, who regularly send HTML email:
- Switch to sending plain text only.
- Maintain the status quo and get ready for the complaints.
That leaves those of us not using Microsoft Outlook, who do not send HTML email regularly. I’m not sure we need to do anything differently than today. I mean, it’s really hard to mess up plain text. Then again, this is Microsoft we are talking about here.