Spectroscopic imaging of a sample placed outside of both the radio frequency and the imaging gradient coils is presented. The sample is placed in a field with a permanent one-dimensional inhomogeneity. The imaging gradients used for phase encoding are designed to produce a static field that depends only on the transverse direction, uncoupling the effects associated with the single-sided nature of these coils. Two-dimensional imaging coupled with chemical shift information is obtained via the ex situ matching technique. Open-saddle geometry is used to match the static field profile for chemical shift information recovery. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Concepts Magn Reson Part B (Magn Reson Engineering) 29B:137–144, 2006