Block images security feature / Images not displaying correctly

[rszebras]

I have a problem with images not appearing consistently in Outlook Express
and Outlook e-mail messages. I sought advice in the FrontPage forum because I
thought it might be my html programming. The MVPs there, however, concurred
it is not a FrontPage issue but an Outlook issue, and suggested I post the
issue here. Here is the background information.

I produce a monthly e-mail newsletter for our company designed in FrontPage.
Once I have designed the newsletter I access the page in Internet Explorer,
select all, and copy. I then paste the contents into the e-mail and send to
our clients. I have had no problems using this method for two years. Here is
a link to the newsletter on our server:
http://www.vmar.net/email_july06.htm

I completed the latest newsletter and tested it. Everyone has the same
problem viewing it using Outlook and Outlook Express -- half the images are
not displaying. Here is what the image looks like in Outlook:
http://www.vmar.net/email_image.htm

If I advise our clients to turn off the block images feature in the security
settings under options, it displays fine (so I know it's not a problem with
our server).

Here is the perplexing anomaly. Half the images display and the other half
don't with the image security feature turned on. For the past two years all
the images have displayed. Now, for the kicker. With the block images feature
on in Outlook, the e-mail client usually displays a message that says, "Some
pictures have been blocked to help prevent the sender from identifying your
computer. Click here to download pictures." My e-mail, however, doesn't give
that warning. If it did, no problem. At least our clients would know the
message isn't displaying correctly. (What is interesting is that Outlook is
supposed to block images with the tag <img src=. It's not blocking those
images.)

The common denominator for the blocked images appears to be background
images that are in tables/cells using the following tag: <td background=.
Although
even that is not consistent, as some of those images are appearing.

Have there been some programming updates to Outlook Express and Outlook
during the past month or two that changed how it handles images? Does anyone
have any suggestions, other than redesign our newsletter? Does anyone know if
I can write a code to trigger Outlook to display the message bar so our
clients know all the images are not displaying? Any help is greatly
appreciated.

 

[Brian Tillman]

Here is the perplexing anomaly. Half the images display and the other
half don't with the image security feature turned on. For the past
two years all the images have displayed. Now, for the kicker. With
the block images feature on in Outlook, the e-mail client usually
displays a message that says, "Some pictures have been blocked to
help prevent the sender from identifying your computer. Click here to
download pictures." My e-mail, however, doesn't give that warning. If
it did, no problem. At least our clients would know the message isn't
displaying correctly. (What is interesting is that Outlook is
supposed to block images with the tag <img src=. It's not blocking
those images.)

The common denominator for the blocked images appears to be background
images that are in tables/cells using the following tag: <td
background=. Although
even that is not consistent, as some of those images are appearing.

Are some embedded and other links?

 

[rszebras]

All of the images are links. However, I have completed analyzing the code for
the images that are displaying and those that aren't. All of the images that
are displaying use the following tag immediately preceding the link: <img
src=>

Example: <img border="0" src="http://www.vmar.net/images/maintop_bnrcnt.gif"
width="44" height="27">

The ones that aren't displaying use the following tag immediately preceding
the link: <td background=>

Example: <td background="http://www.vmar.net/images/maintop_bg.gif"
width="100%">

So it seems clear to me now that the table/cell background images are the
ones not displaying properly. However, I still question "why now", when it
has worked for two years with this coding. I guess I could find someone to
explain how I could re-code the ones that aren't displaying to the code for
the ones that are.