HTML email in Outlook - no background images?

I have a client who's dead-set on sending out their own HTML emails via Outlook. I create the HTML with absolute links for them via Dreamweaver; then they attach the HTML "as text" into a new Outlook message and send it out. It works surprisingly well except for one thing: Outlook always drops out any background image so that part of the message just looks blank.

Is there any easy way to force Outlook to display a background image correctly?

m19

 

Unfortunately, no– that's button's already checked. It's not that images themselves aren't working, it's just images specified as background elements.

m19

 

Hmm, don't we have the answer right here? If you attach the HTML "as text", then you've obviously converted the file from HTML to text. Right, or am I missing a point here?

And, I'm wondering, why not compose the HTML message right in Outlook instead of an external application?