Non-repeating background image [was: Basic HTML question (i think)]

HTML & CSS
1

what do i need to do to the followin html code to keep the image from repeating? I’m trying to edit a stationary template in MS Office/Outlook 2003. Thanks for any help.

<html>
<head>
<style>
<!–
P.msoNormal, LI.msoNormal {
font-family: “Garamond”, “serif”;
font-weight: normal;
font-size: 11pt;
color: “#1D1056”;
margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
}

body
{
font-family: “Garamond”, “serif”;
font-weight: normal;
font-size: 11pt;
color: “#1D1056”;
margin-left: 82px;
}
a
{
color: “#84CBDF”;
}
HR
{
color: “#1D1056”;
width: 100%;
height: 2px;
}
–>
</style>
</head>
<table width = “100%”><tr><td COLSPAN=“2”><tr><td colspan= “2”>
<body background=“SeaMarbl.jpg” bgcolor=“#666699”></td><td> </td></tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>

2

I don’t think that Outlook handles embedded stylesheets like that (I don’t do any “HTML email” so I wouldn’t know, but I do know that HTML email is a royal pain in the neck to work with). But rather than using the deprecated background attribute, I’d go ahead and inline that as a style, and then set it to not repeat, like so - AFTER you remove the BODY tag from the table:


<body style="background: #669 url('SeaMarbl.jpg') top left no-repeat;">
<table width="100&#37;">
	<tr>
		<td colspan="2"></td>
		<td>&nbsp;</td>
	</tr>
</table>
</body>
3

If you’re only going to be sending to other Outlook users, it’s safe to use embedded stylesheets like that. However, some other email clients (namely Gmail and Hotmail) will not accept style declarations, forcing you to use inline styles (such as Dan’s body style there) if you want your style to be seen.

If you’re only going to be sending to Outlook users, again, using the deprecated ‘background’ attribute is a must (as Outlook 2007 does not support the CSS background-image property). Background-repeat is also not supported in Outlook 2007, so there is no way to stop the default behaviour of repeating in both directions.

For a full list of what you can use in HTML email, and what you can’t:
http://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/archives/2007/04/a_guide_to_css_support_in_emai_2.html

4