Microsoft has released Typography improvements in Outlook for Windows. These updates will be applied automatically or enabled by default.
What is the impact of those settings on your content?
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Full justification with adaptive, optimal paragraph algorithm. Full justification is one of the hallmarks of fine typography, and is present in most professional books, magazines, and editorial design. Aligning the text on both the right and left creates a clear box of the text, which in turn reinforces the graphic organization and underlying structure of the page. Good justification is difficult to get right: badly justified text can lead to rivers of whitespace that can be distracting. To eliminate these issues, they are using a highly tuned “optimal paragraph” algorithm which evaluates many ways of laying out each line in a paragraph, and chooses the layout with the most even arrangement of whitespace over the whole paragraph. The justification algorithm uses not only spaces between words but also inter-letter spacing. The algorithm doesn’t force justification, either - if it determines that the text would look better without justification, it’ll automatically leave it off.
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OpenType kerning. If all letters were simply rectangles, typography would be easy. Letters (hypothetical rectangles) would line up next to each other and have exactly the same visual space between them. But letters are irregular. The capital T has a bunch of white space under it and if you just arranged letters based on their edges, then the word “Typography” would look more like “T ypography”. Kerning adjusts the spacing between specific pairs to make them fit better visually. Another good example, consider the word “MUSTARD.” The capital letter A has the opposite problem to the capital letter T – it has a lot of space above it. Put them together with kerning, and the A tucks nicely under the T. Without kerning, it looks more like “MUST ARD”, which might slow readers thinking that it’s two words.
- OpenType ligatures. The irregular shapes of letters can sometimes clash with each other. For example, the hook on the lowercase f can smash into the dot on the i or j. The tail of a y can crash into a preceding g in "edgy." Ligatures are a way of substituting two or more characters with a single combined letter that is specifically drawn for that case.
Examples:
How to turn it off:
1. The new typography features are enabled by default in the Reading Pane. To show the Reading Pane, click View > Reading Pane > Right or Bottom.
2. Click File > Options > Mail > Editor Options > Advanced > Reading mode
3. Uncheck the Advanced Typography in Reading Mode checkbox.
Click here to watch video step how to get to Typography Settings.
If you do not have access to Outlook Settings or Options, please reach out to your internal IT Team so they can adjust it for you.
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