HTML Email Render in Outlook - VML

Question

I have created a HTML email and when viewing in Outlook 2007 I couldn't see some images as they were backgrounds. I have done some hack using VML however it won't let me leave the height value blank as it defaults to 100px, or I can't put auto or a percentage. The background image needs to be able to resize depending on the text size so it shows all the text.

This is the code I have working except for the height values.

<td colspan="6" align="center" valign="top" style="background-image: url('http://example.com/content_centre.png');" background="http://example.com/content_centre.png">
     <!--[if gte mso 9]>
        <v:rect xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" style="width:620px;height:200px;" strokecolor="none">
          <v:fill xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" type="tile" color="#DDDDDD" src="http://example.com/content_centre.png" /></v:fill>
        </v:rect>
        <v:shape xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" id="theText" style="position:absolute;width:620px;height:200px;">
    <![endif]-->
    <table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" style="width:100%;"><tr>
        <td width="30"></td>
        <td align="left" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background:#ffffff; ">
            <p>This is where the text will appear. Doesn’t matter how much text it just stops displaying it.</p></td>
        <td width="30"></td>
    </tr>
    </table>
    <!--[if gte mso 9]>
        </v:shape>
    <![endif]-->
    </td>

Any help would be appreciated.

Solution

Use:

<v:image xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" id="theImage" style='behavior: url(#default#VML); display:inline-block; position:absolute; height:200px; width:620px; top:0; left:0; border:0; z-index:1;' src="http://example.com/content_centre.png"/>

Rather than:

<v:rect

And then in your "v:shape" change height to "auto", this worked for me in OL2007. bearing in mind my example is based on a area that has content that exceeds 100px so I'm not sure if it still defaults at 100px as its minimum, if you need it to be less then set a max-height in the "v:shape" below 100px (but obviously this would prevent scaling to the content)