Outlook Email Broken Layout Fix: Resolve Outlook Button Border Collapsing for Financial Services & Banking
Financial emails carry high-compliance requirements. Layout collapses, overlapping text, or accessibility failures can lead to compliance audits and client confusion. Below is the targeted integration guide to fix Outlook Button Border Collapsing inside Outlook 2016 templates when using SendGrid.
Technical Breakdown
Outlook 2016 uses the Microsoft Word (MSO) which lacks support for standard rendering rules. This causes Outlook Button Border Collapsing elements to break or collapse when rendering templates.
SendGrid Behaviors
SendGrid's template parser automatically injects custom style tags that can override inline styles. Always use inline style definitions and define clear target widths. Enforce strict WCAG color contrast standards across your statement tables and summary grids to ensure legibility and regulatory compliance.
Remediation Code Block
To guarantee perfectly rounded buttons inside Outlook, we must generate a hybrid VML (Vector Markup Language) roundrect structure overlaid with normal HTML tables. VML is read only by Outlook, while WebKit clients read the HTML layout. In your SendGrid campaign manager, make sure you configure your links to run via {{{unsubscribe}}}.
<!--[if mso]>
<v:roundrect xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" href="{{{unsubscribe}}}" style="height:44px;v-text-anchor:middle;width:200px;" arcsize="15%" stroke="f" fillcolor="#720e9e">
<w:anchorlock/>
<center style="color:#ffffff;font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13px;font-weight:bold;">Click Here</center>
</v:roundrect>
<![endif]-->
<!--[if !mso]><!-->
<table role="presentation" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse:collapse;">
<tr><td align="center" bgcolor="#720e9e" style="border-radius:6px;"><a href="{{{unsubscribe}}}" style="padding:12px 24px;color:#ffffff;display:inline-block;text-decoration:none;font-weight:bold;">Click Here</a></td></tr>
</table>
<!--<![endif]-->Live Code Sandbox Test
How to Deploy inside SendGrid
Copy the fixed VML or table wrapper code block from the remediation box above.
Open SendGrid Design Editor, toggle the view mode to Code Editor, or insert a custom 'Code' module block inside your drag-and-drop layout. Drop the corrected code inside the box.