Outlook Email Broken Layout Fix: Resolve Custom Font Fallback Overrides for WCAG Accessibility Violations
Accessibility failures prevent screen readers from navigating templates, isolating disabled subscribers and increasing unsubscribe rates. Below is the targeted integration guide to fix Custom Font Fallback Overrides inside Outlook 2019 templates when using SendGrid.
Technical Breakdown
Outlook 2019 uses the Microsoft Word (MSO) which lacks support for standard rendering rules. This causes Custom Font Fallback Overrides 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. Inject correct table roles (role='presentation') and keep color pairings above the WCAG AA contrast threshold of 4.5:1.
Remediation Code Block
To prevent Outlook's Times New Roman fallback override, wrap your custom font declarations inside an @media block that Outlook ignores, or use MSO conditional statements to override font-families specifically for Microsoft Word rendering engines. In your SendGrid campaign manager, make sure you configure your links to run via {{{unsubscribe}}}.
<!--[if mso]>
<style type="text/css">
body, table, td { font-family: Arial, sans-serif !important; }
</style>
<![endif]-->
<style>
@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Montserrat&display=swap');
</style>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.