Can I use a DIV in an email template?

Question

I am greatly confused about designing an email template for a mailchimp campaign. I want to know if I can use a div with a class of "Container" on my email template. Is using div tags supported by all mail clients? I am using DIV only for the container but in the inner part of the template I have used table, tr and td tags. Please let me know.

Thanks.

Answer 1

You can use div, however tables are supported more consistently. If you try to go the div route, you'll find some of your CSS will fail.

Also, by going with tables, it opens up the old school html attributes that only work in tables. These include align, valign, bgcolor etc, all of which are 100% supported, while their CSS equivalents have partial support.

On a side note, here are all the resources you will need to get started in html email.

Answer 2

As of April 2017, yes, you can use <div> tags in email. Outlook was the only major email client that didn't support them.

See https://github.com/rodriguezcommaj/principles-of-email-design and https://www.sendwithus.com/resources/templates

Answer 3

There is no specifications for layout using table-less nor tables. However, using tables is the preferred way as it renders all at once. This aligns with how email templates render; while div's render separately. If you use div's include your css inline to the template as some clients do not support external css.