How do I get MS Outlook to accept the CSS style display:block?

Question

I am composing an HTML email using a service (MailChimp). The way that MailChimp marks up headings is to use a SPAN tag and gives the tag the inline style of display:block.

MS Outlook 2010 ignores this style. I cannot find any work around. Thus, headings wrap, breaking the desired page display.

Yes, I know that Outlook uses MS Word to display HTML.

Assume that I cannot intervene and hand edit the markup.

How do I get MS Outlook to accept the CSS style display:block and display a SPAN tag as a block level element?

Answer 1

The CSS display attribute is not supported in this version of MS Outlook.

Here's "The Book" on what you can and cannot use:

campaignmonitor.com/css/

Basically, if you can't change your mark-up to a natively-block item, you're stuck.

Answer 2

The best thing is to do it the old fashion way unfortunately. =[ Use tables over tables. so tables=blocks.

Answer 3

I found myself in this exact situation: needing to create header styles that displayed correctly in outlook without the ability to edit the HTML because I'm handing the template off to a client.

I imagine you've already solved this, but to anyone else who spent several hours trying to answer this question and stumbles across this thread, here's how I fixed it:

1. Delete Mailchimp's default H1, H2, etc.

2. Create your own header styles (I named them Header, Sub-Header, etc. just to avoid confusion)

3. Use the new header styles as you wish. The new headings display as blocks.

I'm not exactly sure what's going on under the hood as I can't inspect in Outlook, but my guess is that by not using the default styles either Mailchimp wraps the header text in divs instead of spans.