Outlook 2013 Ignores font-family
What is the best way to specify the font-family when coding emails for Outlook 2013? I have found that font-family is ignored when it is added inline like this:
<span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Text</span>
I have found that this works:
<span><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Text</font></span>
However, this is a pain as I have to add the tag everywhere that text is added. Wrapping a tag around several elements is ignored. Is there a way that I can set the font once and forget about it?
Answer
An effective way to force Outlook 2013 to use specified font stack is to wrap the text in question in a <span> and to use !important when defining the font-family. Outlook will still remove any Google fonts that are defined in the head, but other email clients will use them. Here is an example:
<head>
<link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Indie+Flower' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>
</head>
<body>
<table>
<tr>
<td style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
This will always be Helvetica.
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<table>
<tr>
<td style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
Outlook will display Times New Roman. Others will display Helvetica or Indie Flower.
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<table>
<tr>
<td style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Indie Flower', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif !important;">
Outlook will display Helvetica, others will display Indie Flower.
</span>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
This came from this awesome article: https://www.emailonacid.com/blog/article/email-development/custom-font-stacks-in-outlook