Gmail Email Table Spacing

Question

I know this horse has just about been beat to death.. but I've got a Gmail table spacing issue that is just stumping me this morning.

<td valign="top">
        <img src="###/enewsletter_layout_v3_18.jpg" alt="" />
        <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="background: #000; width: 700px; margin: 0 0 0 8px; text-align: center; color: #fff;">
            <tr>
                <td valign="top" style="background: #890000; height: 50px; padding: 10px 15px; font-size: 24px; font-weight: bold;">
                New Patient Special Offer <br/>
                Save $$$
                </td>                   
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td valign="top" style="background: #000; height: 50px; padding: 5px 15px 15px 15px;">
                    <h1 style="font-size: 24px; font-weight: bold;">Do you have a question?</h1>
                    If you have read anything in this newsletter and have any questions or would like to 
                    discuss further, please contact <br/>
                    The Centre at (555) 555-5555 
                </td>                   
            </tr>           
        </table>

    </td>

No matter what I do, the first image in the table there (layout_v3_18) always has spacing under it. About 2-3 pixels of white space in Gmail. Happens on a couple other images in the email, but the rest work fine. No matter how many times I compare the tables, it won't work.

Thoughts?

Answer 1

I've actually run into this problem a lot recently. The code we found that works best (read: looks consistent in the most mail clients) is the following:

<img src="###" style="display: block;" />

Just add the display: block to every image and it fixes the problem.

Answer 2

In answer to my own question (in case someone else has a similar issue), I finally found the issue (or a solution anyways).

I added a style="float: left" to the image itself, which magically fixed it. Alternatively, using "display: block" tends to have a similar result if used on all images, but the float seems to clear the spacing specifically for GMail when it's working perfectly fine elsewhere.