If you have read our post on how to build an HTML email you will know that it’s quite different from building a web page. The main reason is that there are a lot more email clients than there are web browsers, so there is no one standard to adhere to.

A couple of years ago the Email Standard Project began to shed more light on each email client, how it renders email, and specifically what problems they have. The project is aimed at the email design community and at ISPs.

Each email client is given an acid test – a standard email is sent to that mail client and then it’s noted how the email renders, what elements of the HTML code don’t work etc and then an overall score is applied to that email client.

A full list of rendering reports can be seen below.

Along with rendering the Email Standard Project keep up to date on any changes the big ISPs make, if one of them decides to stop supporting inline CSS or change their rendering engine then they know about it and post it on their ESP blog. We will keep you up to date here on our blog too.

We fully support the project and where possible we try and feedback on any rendering issues we spot and we would encourage you to do the same. ISPs have been known to take the feedback on board and take corrective action where necessary.

You can find out about any news from the ISPs here.

Click an email client to see its acid test scores.

AOL Webmail
Apple Mail
Apple MobileMe
Eudora (Penelope)
Google Mail
Lotus Notes 8
Entourage
Outlook 2007
Thunderbird
Windows Live Hotmail
Windows Live Mail
Windows Mail
Yahoo! Mail
Yahoo! Mail (Classic)