How can I get my spacing accurate in the new editor in Outlook?

I realized this morning that I was working with an existing template created in the classic editor that was converted to the new editor, so I thought, why not create some content fresh, in the new editor; that maybe things will play nice(r).

• I dragged a split onto the page, keeping both columns as Text.
• Using the WYSIWYG editor only—not going into the source code—I typed two paragraphs in the 1st column, and three paragraphs in the 2nd column.
• After all my copy was entered, I went back into the 2nd column, clicked into the source, and inserted my ‘spacer paragraph’ conditional comment:

<!--[if mso]><p style="mso-line-height-rule: exactly; line-height: 30px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 30px;">&nbsp;</span></p><![endif]-->

• When I was in the source, I noticed that none of my paragraphs were in <p> tags, but instead wrapped in <div>s. I didn’t change anything, figuring this was intentional and styling would be applied to accommodate all email client scenarios.
• I saved and sent the test.

I received the test in my Outlook and there was no spacing between any of the “paragraphs”—in either column—which was the result I initially expected from having them inside of <div>s.

I also noticed that my conditional comment ‘spacer’ didn’t take effect either, so I suspected that the Klaviyo engine inserted a space between the two dashes and the left bracket in the opening of the comment. Heading back into the editor, I found I was correct. And there is nothing I can do to remove that space; it always gets put back when I exit the module.

I found that in order to change the <div>s into actual <p>s—without going into the source and editing those tags manually—I had to select all the text, apply a different formatting (I chose “Formatted”) than what it was displaying initially (which was “Normal”), then selecting the text again and re-applying “Normal.”

Heading back into the source now revealed the paragraphs actually formatted with paragraph tags. I re-sent the test…

…and there was still no spacing between paragraphs in Outlook.

The problem is that the paragraphs are styled with padding-bottom: 1em and Outlook doesn’t honor padding on paragraphs (or <div>s, for that matter). It does honor margin, though, so that is my work-around: to go into the source of every paragraph in the email where I need to ensure spacing and override the padding-bottom and add a margin-bottom. (Margin also plays nice with our “Big Three” clients: Gmail, Outlook web, and Yahoo.)

*Again, my references to “Outlook” refer to the Outlook desktop app in Windows, the one powered by Word since 2007.