Outlook 2013 Ignores font-family

Question

What is the best way to specify the font-family when coding emails for Outlook 2013? I have found that font-family is ignored when it is added inline like this:

Answer 1

I just wanted to point out something about this font issue, that it isn't necessary to put your font-family declaration inside the body tag as CoderRoller mentioned in the previous answers.

Also I found something else about this issue, I was using a google Api's font inside the of the email like this:

And then inside the body tag:

But Outlook doesn't agree with having a custom font like that, so then it ignores all the other fallbacks of fonts that are after your custom font, so if this is your case then just remove the custom google font, and use something like:

I have currently this css style in the head of the HTML, I tested this with litmus, and it doesn't matter if you have the declaration inside the body tag, or in the head tag.