Outlook Converts Text Boxes to Images

At times, software does things which are completely incomprehensible to me.  My latest discovery in this field is that Microsoft Outlook sometimes feels called to convert your text boxes into images. Yes, it actually takes your text and converts it into an image.  Why?  You’ve got me there. It probably “seemed like a good idea at the time…”

Try it for yourself.  Open Outlook and insert a text box into the email.  Then right click on the text box and format it.  Go to the layout options and choose either “In line with text,” “Square,” or “Tight.”  Send the email to yourself and then view it.  You’ll notice that you can’t select the text in the text boxes anymore.  Why?  Because they’re now images!

For those visually oriented, here’s what Outlook created for me:

The other funny thing is that text boxes wrapped “in front of the text” or “behind the text” come through just fine.  That is, of course, without being either in front or behind the text.

When I first came across this “feature” it was in Outlook 2003.  A coworker had images that were losing their picture quality when sent through Outlook.  Turned out the images had attached captions as text boxes.  This caused Outlook to turn the entire grouped object (image and caption) into one picture, thus losing quality.  In fact, Outlook 2003 turns the images into BMP images.

I was really hoping that this whole thing would be sorted out in Outlook 2007.  Well,  there was good news and there was bad news.  The bad news is that Outlook 2007 still turns text boxes into images.  The good news is that someone got it through their head that BMPs really should not have ever been created, much less let out of their cage, and now Outlook turns your text boxes into PNGs.  Hooray for better image formats!

Though, I must admit, there is one good thing to be said for Outlook 2007.  Unlike Outlook 2003, it does at least send code that makes the text boxes display correctly (i.e. not as images) when viewed in Outlook itself.  Of course, this code is a fairly horrible mutation on the level of BMP images:

<!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shape=20
id=3D"_x0000_s1036" type=3D"#_x0000_t202" =
style=3D'width:144.75pt;height:60pt;
=
mso-position-horizontal-relative:char;mso-position-vertical-relative:line=
'>
<v:textbox style=3D'mso-next-textbox:#_x0000_s1036'>
<![if !mso]>
<table cellpadding=3D0 cellspacing=3D0 width=3D"100%">
<tr>
<td><![endif]>
<div>
<p class=3DMsoNormal>Hello world!  I’m a text box wrapped =
in line.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<![if !mso]></td>
</tr>
</table>
<![endif]></v:textbox>
<w:wrap type=3D"none"/>
<w:anchorlock/>
</v:shape><![endif]--><![if !vml]><img width=3D199 height=3D86
src=3D"cid:image003.png@01C8E6B1.6C7C6270"
alt=3D"Text Box: Hello world! I’m a text box wrapped in line." =
v:shapes=3D"_x0000_s1036"><![endif]><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shapetype=20
id=3D"_x0000_t75" coordsize=3D"21600,21600" o:spt=3D"75" =
o:preferrelative=3D"t"=20
path=3D"m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" filled=3D"f" stroked=3D"f">
<v:stroke joinstyle=3D"miter" />
<v:formulas>
<v:f eqn=3D"if lineDrawn pixelLineWidth 0" />
<v:f eqn=3D"sum @0 1 0" />
<v:f eqn=3D"sum 0 0 @1" />
<v:f eqn=3D"prod @2 1 2" />
<v:f eqn=3D"prod @3 21600 pixelWidth" />
<v:f eqn=3D"prod @3 21600 pixelHeight" />
<v:f eqn=3D"sum @0 0 1" />
<v:f eqn=3D"prod @6 1 2" />
<v:f eqn=3D"prod @7 21600 pixelWidth" />
<v:f eqn=3D"sum @8 21600 0" />
<v:f eqn=3D"prod @7 21600 pixelHeight" />
<v:f eqn=3D"sum @10 21600 0" />
</v:formulas>
<v:path o:extrusionok=3D"f" gradientshapeok=3D"t" =
o:connecttype=3D"rect" />
<o:lock v:ext=3D"edit" aspectratio=3D"t" />
</v:shapetype><![endif]-->

While I suppose this is technically an improvement over text boxes always displaying as images, everywhere, it seems like Microsoft is telling the rest of the world to buzz off.

What I really want to know is which deranged engineer deep in the bowls of the Outlook software team decided, “Hey in this world of wonderful things like HTML standards and CSS positioning let’s convert everything into images.”  I mean, how hard would it be to give the <div> created for a text box a CSS “float: left” or a “position: absolute”?

Sometimes I think there ought to be a software competition for “Most Bizarre and Utterly Useless Feature.”  I think Microsoft would win their fair share of the prizes.