Outlook blocking external images

[vbcode1980]

Hi,

Our company is preparing to send out an email mailing.
This mailing uses external images that are saved on our webserver.

We've done some tests to see if the email is shown correctly in a number of email clients.

Outlook 2003 blocks the external images by default.
This is not a problem, because usually it shows a link saying "Click here to download images" which will download the external images.
However, with our mailing, it doesn't.
The images are simply removed, there are no red 'X's, or links to download the images.

This behavior goes away if I add the recipient to my safe list, or change some settings in Outlook.
Most of our clients won't have us on their safe list.
And since there's no sign that any images are being blocked, they won't change their settings either...

Does anyone know how to counter this behavior, without requiring the receivers to do anything?

Cheers,
VBCode1980

[RobDog888]

However, with our mailing, it doesn't.
We images are simply removed, there are no red 'X's, or links to download the images.

Whats different with your mailing? Distribution list or something?

[vbcode1980]

Whats different with your mailing? Distribution list or something?

No, I just enter some email addresses.

[Hack]

You aren't going to be able to get around this without the clients doing something, and if you think about, that is a good thing.

Perhaps in this instance there is no spamming going on. What about if there was, and there was a way to programmatically reset everything on the client side so that no matter what they did, they couldn't stop receiving spam emails? That would not be good.

[vbcode1980]

You aren't going to be able to get around this without the clients doing something, and if you think about, that is a good thing.

Perhaps in this instance there is no spamming going on. What about if there was, and there was a way to programmatically reset everything on the client side so that no matter what they did, they couldn't stop receiving spam emails? That would not be good.

Hi Hack,
I'm not looking to change something programmatically on the clients end.

I'm just trying to find out why Outlook won't show the bar that says "Click here to download the pictures"..

[drag0n_45]

Just to make sure I properly understand this issue: You're running Outlook 2003 and when you recieve e-mails you normally see the "Click here to..." box, but in the case of your specific mailing you don't?

[vbcode1980]

Just to make sure I properly understand this issue: You're running Outlook 2003 and when you recieve e-mails you normally see the "Click here to..." box, but in the case of your specific mailing you don't?

Yep.

And I think I have found the answer:
It appears that MS Word (usually set as default email editor) does not like background images in DIV's and TD's.
They are stripped out...

[drag0n_45]

Hmmm.....I'm running outlook 2007, so that might get tricky......BUT...

If you're sending the e-mail, why use DIV's and TD's with backrounds set...just use IMG tags...

[vbcode1980]

Hmmm.....I'm running outlook 2007, so that might get tricky......BUT...

If you're sending the e-mail, why use DIV's and TD's with backrounds set...just use IMG tags...

I didn't make it, but apparently it is to show some text in front of the backgrounds.

[drag0n_45]

Maybe there's a way to change the default editor?

Try this...

http://schools.nyc.gov/NR/rdonlyres/...aileditor1.pdf

Although i'm not sure if it will help, as you can't do that to EVERYONE's computer. Why not just make the text a pdf and send that?

[RobDog888]

Could it be that your image links are being blocked or parsed by ISPs as malicious or as phising?

[drag0n_45]

I'm curious the answer to that as well, but I don't think that's the case. There would have to be some kind of testing that he did to determine that it was only in particular tags that the images didn't show up. In that case, they would have had to show up in certain other conditions in HTML. If the ISP were detecting it as phishing, would they not block the image in all cases?

[RobDog888]

They are not blocking his because its internal, images hosted on their webserve. He needs an external test as a control..

[drag0n_45]

How do we know he can see them? I may not be looking hard enough, but I don't notice where he said he can see the images but his clients can't. I just noticed him saying that the images are removed.

[vbcode1980]

It seems to be a problem with the HTML rendering engine of Word (which is used in Outlook).
It does a lot of strange things, including removing background images, not showing table borders.. stuff like that.

We've had to tweak the stuff for hours to make it work.
The final result looked fine in Outlook and other mail clients, but not in any browser...

[RobDog888]

So you got it showing the images now?