Outlook Email Broken Layout Fix: Resolve CSS Grid Broken Columns for Client Rendering Engine Anomalies
Email client rendering variations are caused by differences in parser engines. Legacy Outlook engines ignore modern block models, forcing layouts to stack vertically. Below is the targeted integration guide to fix CSS Grid Broken Columns inside Outlook 2021 templates when using Campaign Monitor.
Technical Breakdown
Outlook 2021 uses the Microsoft Word (MSO) which lacks support for standard rendering rules. This causes CSS Grid Broken Columns 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. Test layout code regressions side-by-side using the Campaign Diff Comparator before pushing visual style changes to your production templates.
Remediation Code Block
Always compile grid layouts using standard percentage-width or pixel-width nested tables aligned with the align='left' attribute. This acts as a responsive grid block that floats and adapts naturally to any viewport size. In your Campaign Monitor campaign manager, make sure you configure your links to run via [unsubscribe].
<table role="presentation" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%">
<tr>
<td width="48%" align="left" valign="top" style="padding-bottom:10px;">Col 1</td>
<td width="4%"></td>
<td width="48%" align="left" valign="top" style="padding-bottom:10px;">Col 2</td>
</tr>
</table>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.