View Standard Fix
USE CASE Target

Outlook Email Broken Layout Fix: Resolve Outlook Background Image Collapse 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 Outlook Background Image Collapse inside Outlook App (iOS & Android) templates when using Campaign Monitor.

Technical Breakdown

Outlook App (iOS & Android) uses the WebKit / Blink Wrapper which lacks support for standard rendering rules. This causes Outlook Background Image Collapse 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 in Outlook desktop, you must wrap your element or cell inside a Microsoft VML (Vector Markup Language) shapes structure that declares the background image explicitly using the 'v:background' or 'v:fill' vector properties. In your Campaign Monitor campaign manager, make sure you configure your links to run via [unsubscribe].

<td background="https://example.com/bg.jpg" bgcolor="#222222" valign="top" style="background-image: url('https://example.com/bg.jpg'); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: cover;">
  <!--[if mso]>
  <v:rect xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" fill="true" stroke="false" style="width:600px;height:300px;">
    <v:fill type="tile" src="https://example.com/bg.jpg" color="#222222" />
    <v:textbox inset="0,0,0,0">
  <![endif]-->
  <div>Overlay Content</div>
  <!--[if mso]>
    </v:textbox>
  </v:rect>
  <![endif]-->
</td>

Live Code Sandbox Test

Interactive Campaign Monitor Custom Sandbox

Target Environment: Outlook App (iOS & Android)

How to Deploy inside Campaign Monitor

1

Copy the fixed VML or table wrapper code block from the remediation box above.

2

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.

Targeted Fixes by Use Case & Industry