Outlook Email Broken Layout Fix: Resolve Default Image Blocking Layouts for Editorial & Content Newsletters
Editorial newsletters rely on content layout readability and structural text spacing. If fonts default to Times New Roman or layout borders break, subscriber engagement metrics suffer. Below is the targeted integration guide to fix Default Image Blocking Layouts inside Outlook 2016 templates when using Campaign Monitor.
Technical Breakdown
Outlook 2016 uses the Microsoft Word (MSO) which lacks support for standard rendering rules. This causes Default Image Blocking Layouts elements to break or collapse when rendering templates.
Campaign Monitor Behaviors
Campaign Monitor wraps custom blocks in dynamic edit tags, which can break the column flow inside Outlook. Ensuring correct class names is essential. Keep your editorial body clean. Strip redundant CSS class definitions using Vaporize to ensure the newsletter stays under Gmail's 102KB clipping ceiling.
Remediation Code Block
To resolve this, always define explicit width and height attributes on your images to preserve their layout boxes when blocked. Add robust alternative (ALT) text styled with CSS font-sizes and colors, and encode vital brand logos directly as Base64 data URIs. In your Campaign Monitor campaign manager, make sure you configure your links to run via [unsubscribe].
<img src="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAADIA..." width="150" height="40" alt="Company Logo" style="display: block; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; color: #111111; font-weight: bold; border: 0;">Live Code Sandbox Test
How to Deploy inside Campaign Monitor
Copy the fixed VML or table wrapper code block from the remediation box above.
In Campaign Monitor, click the 'Source' button on your selected editable text region, or edit the template code files directly. Ensure you append the 'class="cs-editable"' flag if you need inline editing later.