Microsoft is planning to extend the use of Word to render HTML in emails in Outlook 2010.
Microsoft Word has very little support for CSS. As a result, HTML emails have to be coded completely different from web pages, using non-standards compliant and deprecated practices such as tables for layout, table cell backgrounds, and the use of font tags. This is often a time consuming process with unreliable results.
Outlook 2010 is still in beta. If there is enough pressure from the community, perhaps this can be prevented. Please visit http://www.fixoutlook.org to participate.
Two things.
1. You can’t use background images in table cell backgrounds in emails.
2. This has been going on since Outlook 2007 was released with the Word rendering engine replacing IE’s.
xd - 7/22/09 8:27 AM