Entourage Issues

[pnoble]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel
Email Client: Exchange

I am a refuge from Outlook and Windows, including 15 months of Vista hell, but am forced to use Entourage for Exchange compatibility.

I am hardly a power user but find a simply stunning amount of real world deficiencies which seem only to increase over time. I understand that Office 2007 and 2008 are completely different code bases, but Office 2008 seems like 'Office 1998.'

Among other thing:

* Can't forward an HTML email, something I typically need to do constantly. A hotel reservation, a flight confirmation, a web purchase receipt, etc., all unreadable to the recipient.

* Can't cut and paste HTML content from a web site, such as a news article, again a daily need. (Could initially paste HTML text at least but fonts were garbled. MS fix seems to remove the capability completely.) I am now forced to edit every now plain text pasted article e.g. to add back the publication name - typically lost as it was an HTML header even in the 'print ready' format and to remove all manner of 'plain texted' links.

* Can't view messages sent from my iPhone. Could initially but messages were garbled due to known header problem with Exchange 2003, I understand. MS fix seems to remove the capability completely, though using Exchange web client I can see that all sent messages are in my Exchange sent box. Being ale to search and reference sent email is critical to my business. Am I alone in this? Upgrading a medium sized company to Exchange Server 2008, where I understand the issue is fixed, just so its CEO can read his iPhone email is a rather expensive solution!

* Speaking of searching Sent email, they all get listed by sender, me, with no option to change this - unlike in Outlook. So trying to find a particular sent email is nearly impossible. (Same issue with any unarchived email - since Office 2008 can't handle archived email.)

* Crude text editing: for example, it forces a capitalization after e.g. Or i.e. No ability to highlight text. This affects my every day communication.

* When I'm sent an attached Word document and I edit and save it, to forward (back), it is not actually saved. It can only be 'saved as' and then reattached to the reply. I lost countless edits and baffled countless recipients until I discovered this.

* Inability to view our office email directory, so that every email that needs to be sent to the whole company is an exercise in cut and paste from old emails and attempts to guess who joined us and who left in the interim. (OK this last is offset by the real benfit of ActiveSync versus having to VPN in to access Exchange).

I read glowing reviews of Entourage and seem like I'm living in an alternate world. Am I missing something?

Also, does anyone think that with Snow Leopard including an Exchange client, it might be possible to switch from using Office, at least for email?

 

[Ed Kimball]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel
Email Client: Exchange

I am a refuge from Outlook and Windows, including 15 months of Vista hell, but
am forced to use Entourage for Exchange compatibility.

I am hardly a power user but find a simply stunning amount of real world
deficiencies which seem only to increase over time. I understand that Office
2007 and 2008 are completely different code bases, but Office 2008 seems like
'Office 1998.'

The other applications (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint) are much more like
their 2007 Win versions than Entourage is like Outlook. Entourage is indeed
weaker in features than Outlook.

Among other thing:

* Can't forward an HTML email, something I typically need to do constantly. A
hotel reservation, a flight confirmation, a web purchase receipt, etc., all
unreadable to the recipient.

Use Forward as Attachement.

* Can't cut and paste HTML content from a web site, such as a news article,
again a daily need. (Could initially paste HTML text at least but fonts were
garbled. MS fix seems to remove the capability completely.) I am now forced to
edit every now plain text pasted article e.g. to add back the publication name
- typically lost as it was an HTML header even in the 'print ready' format and
to remove all manner of 'plain texted' links.

Try pasting the content into Word and then either copying and pasting into
Entourage or sending the Word document as an attachment.

* Can't view messages sent from my iPhone. Could initially but messages were
garbled due to known header problem with Exchange 2003, I understand. MS fix
seems to remove the capability completely, though using Exchange web client I
can see that all sent messages are in my Exchange sent box. Being ale to
search and reference sent email is critical to my business. Am I alone in
this? Upgrading a medium sized company to Exchange Server 2008, where I
understand the issue is fixed, just so its CEO can read his iPhone email is a
rather expensive solution!

I don't use Exchange, so I can't comment here.

* Speaking of searching Sent email, they all get listed by sender, me, with no
option to change this - unlike in Outlook. So trying to find a particular sent
email is nearly impossible. (Same issue with any unarchived email - since
Office 2008 can't handle archived email.)

You can select the columns that you want to appear in the Sent Mail folder.
Use either Columns on the View menu or control-click (or right-click) on the
column header line to add or delete columns to display. You can also use the
search field above the right hand side of the column list to find messages
sent by a particular person.

* Crude text editing: for example, it forces a capitalization after e.g. Or
i.e. No ability to highlight text. This affects my every day communication.

Put a comma after e.g., which would be proper grammar anyway. Or go to Tools

AutoCorrect and uncheck Capitalize first letter of sentences.

* When I'm sent an attached Word document and I edit and save it, to forward
(back), it is not actually saved. It can only be 'saved as' and then
reattached to the reply. I lost countless edits and baffled countless
recipients until I discovered this.

When you Save an attachment, you get a dialog box asking you where you want
it saved. I suspect you're using Open, not Save. Don't use Open if you may
want to change the content of the attachment. Or look in
~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Saved Attachments (where ~ represents your
home directory.)

* Inability to view our office email directory, so that every email that needs
to be sent to the whole company is an exercise in cut and paste from old
emails and attempts to guess who joined us and who left in the interim. (OK
this last is offset by the real benfit of ActiveSync versus having to VPN in
to access Exchange).

I don't use Exchange, so I can't comment here.

I read glowing reviews of Entourage and seem like I'm living in an alternate
world. Am I missing something?

Well, you've obviously missed a couple of features that I've pointed out
above. If you are having trouble making Entourage do what you want, I
strongly encourage you to use Help > Entourage Help, which really can be
very useful. But, as I noted above, there are many features in Outlook that
are not in Entourage. If you want them, use Send Feedback on the Help menu
to ask MS to add them to Entourage. But be prepared to wait.

Also, does anyone think that with Snow Leopard including an Exchange client,
it might be possible to switch from using Office, at least for email?

I think that's Apple's intent. We'll have to wait and see whether it works
that way or not.

 

[Diane Ross]

Well, you've obviously missed a couple of features that I've pointed out
above. If you are having trouble making Entourage do what you want, I
strongly encourage you to use Help > Entourage Help, which really can be
very useful. But, as I noted above, there are many features in Outlook that
are not in Entourage. If you want them, use Send Feedback on the Help menu
to ask MS to add them to Entourage. But be prepared to wait.
I think that's Apple's intent. We'll have to wait and see whether it works
that way or not.

You might be happier installing Windows and using Outlook on your Mac.As far
as Apple's exchange, it will probably pale in comparison.

 

[pnoble]

Ed,

Thank you so much for your fast and comprehensive response!

I have gone through all of your suggestions:

Use forward as an attachment: thank you!! Not quite as effective as just forwarding the HTML in terms of getting peoples' attention, but it works!!

Pasting HTML: Indeed and I am either PDF'ing or editing – both a bit quicker than going the Word route, but how could Microsoft, in 2008, and for the Mac to boot, come out with an application that is not HTML compatible? And deal with the initial coding errors by simply removing the last vestiges of compatibility rather than fixing the underlying issue?

iPhone sent issue: best I know (or rather what I read), ActiveSync had a bug from day one relating to message headers that Microsoft never corrected, but they got around the issue by compensating in Outlook. Feel free to correct the record on this! Just FYI, until recently a Sent message originating from an iPhone would read as as much as a page of raw formatting code followed by the message and then followed by more ‘gobbledygook’. A few weeks ago, with one or other maintenance upgrade, messages simply disappeared from my Sent folder. This is a huge issue since I have no easily accessible or searchable record of emails I sent from my iPhone.

Sent column issue after search: I can’t change the header! Mac’s Genius folks said the same as have other, but whereas in Outlook you can actually change the header (not that you would typically want to) in Entourage you can’t, or at least I can’t! I have Entourage laid out with reading pane on the right. View > Column is actually grayed out. If I right click on the column heading (which reads ‘Arrange by: Sent’), my only option is to change ‘arrange by’ to another schema but all emails are still labeled ‘Paul Noble’. What might I be doing wrong? And why anyway would the default, assuming it can be changed, be nonsensical and different to the un-searched ‘To’ which is the logical header for a sent email, just as ‘from’ is for an inbound email? I can’t imagine a circumstance where one could possible want another arrangement. Re using the <‘From’, ‘Starts with’, ‘Filter’> search function, most of my searches (and I do this many times a day) are ‘open’, just looking for a particular reference within my historically received or sent emails such as a client reference. Works wonderfully otherwise and usefully in the InBox where the header is not changed from the logical ‘From’.

Crude text editing: I concede to your grammatical skills, but certainly Word neither capitalizes after i.e. Or e.g., nor green underlines it as a grammatical error. Removing Autocorrect>Capitalize is not a practical solution so I will follow your lead, grammatically speaking. Thank you! BTW, not having highlight (i.e. not being able to choose Word as my text editor) is a real negative. Used it all the time for years highlighting points in emails and attachments.

Saved attachments: thank you for telling me where they are saved to (!), but what I do and did for many years uneventfully I think with Outlook, is click on the attachment to open, edit and then click Save (in Word). No dialog box or error message comes up in Office 2008 and I assumed I was saving the altered attachment (to the email). Indeed in Outlook, best I remember, if one tried to then close the email a dialog box would ask if you wanted to save the changes to the attachment. The email and attachment now seem entirely disassociated. What I would do is then forward on (often back to the recipient) the email with its modified attached Office document. No one ever complained so I assume it worked under Windows!

No Exchange email directory: another huge impediment to normal business operation. I have just shy of 60 employees. Imagine if I had 600 or 6,000! Is there any way to create email recipient groups (e.g. Sales, Marketing, whole company) in Entourage?

Again, thank you for your very prompt and detailed reply.

 

[pnoble]

Diane,

Until recently I had the original Air with 64GB SSD so no space for Windows. I now have the Air with 128GB SSD, so this is an option - though I was rather hoping I would not have to revisit Windows, especially after spending 15 months with Vista.

What is the Windows + Parallels + Office 2007 load approximately? I have 27GB left on my drive and don't want to be near the limit.

Paul

 

[Gaston]

Diane,





Until recently I had the original Air with 64GB SSD so no space for Windows.
I now have the Air with 128GB SSD, so this is an option - though I was
rather hoping I would not have to revisit Windows, especially after spending
15 months with Vista.





What is the Windows + Parallels + Office 2007 load approximately? I have
27GB left on my drive and don't want to be near the limit.





Paul




Whops.

After reading all this, I should have stuck with Outlook under WinXP on my Mac.

Paul
WinXP + VMware Fusion + Office 2007 Ultimate ≈ 6 Go initially. Unfortunately, as a great Win defect, it tends to grow quite fast. above all if you use Outlook, the weight of the email boxes are huge.

So it might reach ≈ 20 Go in no time.

Some advice would be to :
- use alternate Windows XP Release (that can be 500 Mo after installation instead of 3 Go)
- installing Office 2003 instead of 2007 (much more glutton)
- not install all uselesss Office packages

I hope this will help.

Gaston

 

[Ed Kimball]

I'm glad you found my response helpful. Here are a couple of more points:
1. Don't expect Entourage to be a clone of Outlook or Outlook Express. That
was not MS's intent. I believe this was a mistake on their part, but it is
what it is.
2. You can change columns if you put the preview pane on the bottom instead
of on the right. I find this arrangement much easier to use.
3. If I turn Capitalize first letter on (which I normally don't), Entourage
DOES capitalize the word after i.e. unless I put a comma after it. Note
that, since i.e. is short for "that is" and e.g. is short for "for example,"
both should really be followed by a comma. Not only is that better grammar,
but it will also prevent Entourage from capitalizing the next word.

Hope this is helpful.
Ed.

 

[Kerry]

You might be happier installing Windows and using Outlook on your Mac.As far
as Apple's exchange, it will probably pale in comparison.

I would agree with Diane on this one. Entourage 08 has a number of
issues but when you add in Exchange it greatly gets wild. Since you
are an Outlook user anyway, its probably best to stick with this until
Microsoft gets Entourage fixed (if you read this or other forums
you'll see the multitude of issues). You can use either Parallels or
VMFusion. My suggestion would be to use XP as even this configuration
is going to add a load to your system. I would also suggest at least 4
gigs of memory to avoid a lot of swap ins/swap outs. I find that
Windows runs as fast on my Mac under Parallels and a Windows only PC.

There are two advantages for you. Specifically, Outlook was built to
work seamlessy as a front-end to Exchange. Its solid. Secondly, the
feature set of Outlook is greater than that of Entourage. I also find
the Outlook runs faster in the Virtual Machine than Entourage does
natively in OSX.

All these issues that we are experiencing with Entourage aren't there
with Outlook. Its pretty tried and true. For my purposes, I don't need
Outlook as I don't run in an Exchange environment although I do work
for many companies that of course do. If Entourage 08 just worked as
its supposed to, it would meet my needs fully. However, it doesn't. So
even I am thinking about reverting back to Outlook. Actually, I
started this week with preliminary testing. The primary thing that I
needed to test was sync with both my BlackBerry Curve and Palm desktop
and that Parallels would not create any problems with the USB
connection. It doesn't and it works fine. Since the BlackBerry is
really designed for Windows (in the Mac world have to use a third
party app such as Missing Sync for the BlackBerry) the BlackBerry's
desktop manager is slick and provides exceptional functionality. The
Palm Desktop, although not much has changed with it in a long time,
works beautifully under XP (again, in the Mac environment you really
now need to use something like Missing Sync for sync services sync'g
and although its good there can be issues and you have added in
another variable so....).

I haven't decided if I want to revert to Outlook but I've had to stop
using Entourage due to its sync issues (especially with the upgrade to
BlackBerry's 4.5 OS it now really messes up) and am currently using
the Apple apps which cause no sync issues. However, they are not very
powerful and I don't think they can meet my needs. Finally, there is
one other reason I might want to run XP in Parallels. Intuit has not
come out with a native app of Quicken for the Mac. They are working on
one but its been in the works for almost a year (that is announced a
planned rollout of this in the fall) and nothing - no news and no one,
that is in the Quicken forums, has heard anything about where this
stands. In fact, it is very hard to even find this on their website.
Although the Quicken I use 2006 meets my needs it is lame compared to
the Windows version 2009 and there are some things in 2009 that I
could put to use. I am finding that heavy duty Quicken users, like
myself, are starting to run the Windows version of Quicken under XP on
their Macs. So my two most core applications, Information Management
and Financial management do run better under XP. I feel this is sad
for the Mac as my move back to the Mac in 2003 was really intended to
get out of the Windows environment (it sort of drove me nuts).
Actually, when i returned to the Mac in 2003 I would honestly say
things were a lot rosier than they are today (ENT2004 ran nicely and
without issue, at least for me and the Quicken of the day was totally
fine and neither of these are the case today).

 

[Diane Ross]

What is the Windows + Parallels + Office 2007 load approximately? I have 27GB
left on my drive and don't want to be near the limit.

I haven't installed it myself so will leave the actual comments to users
that have. However, 27 GB is sounding pretty small. You need a minimum of
10% free drive space for virtual memory.

Problems from insufficient RAM and free hard disk space
<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq_topic/performance2.html>

I'm not sure what kind of files you have on the Air, but you might consider
moving them to an external drive to free up some space. For example, I
symlink my Movies folder back to my internal drive. If you have a lot of mp3
and/or photos you might consider moving those to an external also. Leave the
actual applications on the Air, but the destination folders can be moved.

I had problems deleting the default Movies folder. When I tried to delete
it, I received "required by the OS" error. I was able to delete the folder
in the terminal and replace it with my symlink.

Change in the Terminal:

sudo rm -r ~/Movies

Then it'll ask for your administrator password.

Hope this helps!

 

[pnoble]

Gaston,

Thank you! It frankly doesn't look very promising especially when one adds Dianne's suggestion to install 4GB of RAM.

I use a gen 2 MacBook Air with 2GB and 128GB SSD - both fixed - and I am determined to stay with this platform since it is a perfectly technology fit for my life and work style. (And I mean perfect!)

Microsoft charges several hundred dollars more (give or take their current fire sale) for an Exchange Server supported addition of Office 2008 and yet the actual support seems rudimentary at best.

ActiveSync is the one real plus for me: no need to use a VPN - my Air acts almost like a giant BlackBerry (OK, iPhone!): instant on, instant email, assuming one has a Wi-Fi connection, until AT&T allows the iPhone to tether.

But on the other hand, speaking of iPhone, simply not being able to see your iPhone sent email in Entourage, period - with this being the fix for being able to see it but with the subject line missing and the text preceded by a page of garbage, is unconscionable.

I get the sense that the Mac Office developer team has descended into Dilbert levels of cynicism because the Mac Office code base just doesn't support what the product is supposed to do. Just my sense. Seems 'lipstick on a pig' marketing it as Office.

How else can one explain actually taking out macro compatibility, removing the last vestiges of HTML compatibility, not having archived mail compatibility, etc.

Oh, well!

 

[pnoble]

Kerry,

Thanks for your input. I too am a refugee from Windows - the last 15 months in Vista hell!

I fortunately don't have another critical application beyond Office that won't run (or run properly) on OS X.

I switched from BlackBerry to iPhone, which gets over the BB/Mac sync issue though it presents its own in terms of Entourage incompatibility.

I am confident that 2009 and Snow Leopard with its Exchange compatibility will prove to be one more step towards redemption!

Paul

 

[pnoble]

I haven't installed it myself so will leave the actual comments to users
that have. However, 27 GB is sounding pretty small. You need a minimum of
10% free drive space for virtual memory.

Problems from insufficient RAM and free hard disk space


I'm not sure what kind of files you have on the Air, but you might consider
moving them to an external drive to free up some space. For example, I
symlink my Movies folder back to my internal drive. If you have a lot of mp3
and/or photos you might consider moving those to an external also. Leave the
actual applications on the Air, but the destination folders can be moved.

I had problems deleting the default Movies folder. When I tried to delete
it, I received "required by the OS" error. I was able to delete the folder
in the terminal and replace it with my symlink.

Change in the Terminal:

sudo rm -r ~/Movies

Then it'll ask for your administrator password.

Hope this helps!

Diane,

I just finished loading all my photos back onto my new MacBook Air after upgrading from the initial 64GB SSD version. I just can't psychologically go back!

Seems like running Office 2007 with 2GB RAM is anyway not advisable.

Paul

 

[Ed Kimball]

Just a quick note: vmWare Fusion is more stable and more compatible with
Windows hardware devices (USB etc) than Parallels Desktop.

You'll need 2 GB of RAM to comfortably run vmWare Fusion with 1 GB or a
little less dedicated to Windows XP. You'll need 10-20 GB of disk space
for Windows XP, depending on how much space you need available on the
Win XP side of things.

The version 4.0 of Parallels that came out recently seems to be more stable
than 3.0 in my limited testing. I haven't really checked it much against USB
devices. VMWare Fusion has definitely received excellent reviews.

 

[Gaston]

Gaston,





Thank you! It frankly doesn't look very promising especially when one
adds Dianne's suggestion to install 4GB of RAM.





I use a gen 2 MacBook Air with 2GB and 128GB SSD - both fixed - and I
am determined to stay with this platform since it is a perfectly technology
fit for my life and work style. (And I mean perfect!)





Microsoft charges several hundred dollars more (give or take their current
fire sale) for an Exchange Server supported addition of Office 2008 and
yet the actual support seems rudimentary at best.





ActiveSync is the one real plus for me: no need to use a VPN - my Air
acts almost like a giant BlackBerry (OK, iPhone!): instant on, instant
email, assuming one has a Wi-Fi connection, until AT&T allows the iPhone
to tether.





But on the other hand, speaking of iPhone, simply not being able to see
your iPhone sent email in Entourage, period - with this being the fix
for being able to see it but with the subject line missing and the text
preceded by a page of garbage, is unconscionable.





I get the sense that the Mac Office developer team has descended into
Dilbert levels of cynicism because the Mac Office code base just doesn't
support what the product is supposed to do. Just my sense. Seems 'lipstick
on a pig' marketing it as Office.





How else can one explain actually taking out macro compatibility, removing
the last vestiges of HTML compatibility, not having archived mail compatibility,
etc.





Oh, well!




Hi Paul,

Having spent my early youth on Windows XP + Office 2003,
my studies under Mac + Office 2004,
my first pro years in Windows Vista + Office 2003,

then now, turning back to the great Mac OS.

I first used Win XP + Office 2007 under VM Fusion 2 & Boot Camp,
then now, I completely swap to Mac OS + Office 2008 for Mac.

I have to admit Office for windows is almost offering the best tools.
Outlook and Excel have no comparison.
they are much more powerful than their Mac brothers.

I understand your point in running the best tools which will provide the most compatibility with partners.

thus, the best compromised would be to have:
- VM Fusion 2 (a lot more powerful and stable than parallels, it really gives the access to your hardware and doesn't only emulate like parallels)
- Win XP Business (not a retail release, try to get one like this one:
<http://xpcoccinelle.fredisland.net/>
which is a lighten Win XP Business, sorry, it is a french release, i never saw this done with an English release)
- Office 2003 (2007 Ed. only brings Mac-like GUI)
- at least 2GB of RAM memory (3 GB would be great; personnally, I have 4GB Kingston HyperX Memory, and it runs perfect as I'm allocating 2GB for Windows XP under VM Fusion)
- and finally, it will cost you 15 GB of hard drive (including Free space under Windows to run at a normal speed).

the difficult point in having a Win partition, is the fact Win never stops to grow. with all the updates, the patches, the fixes... both for the OS and Office System.

you'll have to clean your win partition as often as you can, and limit the updates (don't install XP SP3, which will cost you hard drive space, and network rules which may block many access compatibilities).

the good thing with the Customed French Release of Win XP business relies in its light weight (less than 1 GB after installation), no need of update, stable, virus free, includes a huge amount of tools...

talking now about smartphones, there is a large amount of vendor choices: nokia, blackberry, HTC, iphone...

the 2 best ones, in terms of Efficiency, Reliability, Autonomy, User-Friendly are:
- HTC (Touch Diamond or Touch Pro)
- Efficient
- iPhone-like UI but not as fluent
- preferably used with Windows
- bad autonomy
- iPhone
- efficient
- perfect UI
- working now good with Exchange servers
- better autonomy

one thing I didn't try is MobileMe by Apple.
I don't know it would help in making your system more compatible with Exchange servers, but it might compensate the small defects of sync compatibility.

I don't know how far it will help you.

Regards,
Gaston

PS: I'm not a geek =)

 

[Gaston]

I would also agree with one of the first posts saying it is a purpose from Microsoft to have developed a "poorer" version of Office for Mac than the original one for Windows.

who wants to lose customers?

 

[Ed Kimball]

Just a quick note: vmWare Fusion is more stable and more compatible with
Windows hardware devices (USB etc) than Parallels Desktop.

You'll need 2 GB of RAM to comfortably run vmWare Fusion with 1 GB or a
little less dedicated to Windows XP. You'll need 10-20 GB of disk space
for Windows XP, depending on how much space you need available on the
Win XP side of things.

FWIW, here's a recent comparison of the latest versions of Fusion and
Parallels:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/12/16/51TC-parallels-fusion_1.html
As one might expect, each has advantages and disadvantages.

 

[Kerry]

FWIW, here's a recent comparison of the latest versions of Fusion and
Parallels:http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/12/16/51TC-parallels-fusion_1.html
As one might expect, each has advantages and disadvantages.

Good article/review.

 

[Kerry]

Microsoft, apparently.

--
Send responses to the relevant news group rather than email to me.
E-mail sent to this address may be devoured by my very hungry SPAM
filter. Due to Google's refusal to prevent spammers from posting
messages through their servers, I often ignore posts from Google
Groups. Use a real news client if you want me to see your posts.

JR

Yes unfortunate but true. However, I wonder if they are losing
customers if they suddenly revert to Outlook. They've just made more
money - you've bought Office for the Mac, now you need XP or.. And you
get at least a version of Outlook. I'm not a conspiracy theorist
but.... I honestly find this very unfortunate for the Mac. I really
hate being forced back to Windows and went to the Mac as Windows drove
me nuts. But, this whole situation with the problems in Entourage is
almost leaving little choice.

 

[MattShannon]

Some Related Entourage Questions:

1. Can e-mails sent by a BlackBerry via my Gmail account be made to automatically appear in my Entourage '08 sent folder?

2. If not, does Outlook '07 have this ability (i.e., to automatically upload BlackBerry-sent Gmail e-mails into the Outlook sent folder)?

3. When Entourage '08 e-mails are printed, the print size is enlarged unnaturally and looks bad, a departure from the WYSIWYG approach of Outlook '07 and a waste of paper, etc. Can this be corrected with a setting change?

Thank you, Matt

 

[Paul Noble]

Matt,

I will defer to others on your first you questions.

Re printing too large, it has bothered me too though with so many other gross deficiencies in Outlook '08 it seems minor by comparison and at least fixable.

To fix go to File > Print > Page Set Up > Scale. The default value is 100% which should logically deliver both header and body print size that looks 'normal' in print. It doesn't!

It would seem that the header and body text are differently constructed typefaces and scale differently and also that the value '100%' actually gives you around a 35% magnification of body text and the correct default value should be in the 65-70% range. (I personally prefer the text to print a point larger on paper.)

So my experience: I use Calibri 11 point for my emails. The header seems (fixed at) Calibri 10.
Printing at 'default' scale (100%) my header now looks around 12 point and the body text around 15 point - which is excessive (and around now three points above the header font size).

If I now set scale at 70%, my header prints at around 10 point, the body at around 12 point - with the header looking a bit too small on paper but the body text about right, to my eye. (seems now a two point spread versus one on my screen).

If you set at ~67% you are close to the original 10 point of the header, 11 point for the body - at least when viewed on a screen with a pixel pitch of approx. 0.22mm (a 13.1" screened MBA). I myself prefer using 70%.

Of course Apple would have thought this through and we wouldn't have to, but this is Microsoft! Every day with their software is an adventure!!

PS: there may be some deeper insight possible here relating to how fonts, screens and printers interact but it is beyond my skill set!

Hopefully this anyhow will resolve your issue.