Outlook 2003 and plain-text

[Ed Vazquez]

I've noticed something odd about O2K3 and the way it deals
with plain text.

If you (like me) do not want to read e-mail in HTML, DOC,
RichText, etc. but prefer good old plain text, there is now an
option under "Tools -> Option -> E-mail Options" to "Read all
standard mail in plain format."

All well and good, right? Well, perhaps.

What O2K3 is actually doing is re-formatting _all_ messages,
from whatever they might be, into HTML, then setting the font
to "Courier" for all parts.

So, an e-mail that was _originally_ marked as MIME type
text/plain, when opened by O2K3 will become text/html but be
displayed as if it were "plain text."

Can anyone verify/validate this, and if so, can anyone suggest
a method to _really_ use "text/plain" only?

 

[Brian Tillman]

If you (like me) do not want to read e-mail in HTML, DOC,
RichText, etc. but prefer good old plain text, there is now an
option under "Tools -> Option -> E-mail Options" to "Read all
standard mail in plain format." ....snip...
So, an e-mail that was _originally_ marked as MIME type
text/plain, when opened by O2K3 will become text/html but be
displayed as if it were "plain text."

I can't verify it for certain, since I don't know exactly what happens
inside Outlook, not having written it, but it's my understanding (from
things I've read in this forum and from information in
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=307594 and
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=831607) that the "Read as Plain" flag
controls the rendering and presentation of the message, causing all MIME
specifications to be stripped at the display, and has no effect on how the
message is stored. However, the _real_ plain text messages I've received
seem to me to not behave as your seem to.

As to replies and forwards, the latter article I mentioned above says, "If
the Read all standard mail in plain text option is turned on, Outlook 2003
uses the display format that you are currently using to initiate any print,
reply to or forward functions for the e-mail message." Frankly, I'm not
exactly sure what that means. Since the "format [I'm] currently using" when
I have "Read as Plain" is, as far as I'm concerned, plain text, I'd expect
messages I send in reply or which I forward to be in plain text, an my
experimentation shows that to be the case. No matter what default format
I've chosen, if I forward a message or reply to one, the Compose window
indicates the format is "Plain Text". However, I could also interpret the
wording I quoted above as meaning, "the message will be sent in the default
format I've specified in my options." I've been experimenting and it looks
like outgoing messages are sent in plain text (quoted-printable) no matter
what format my default is. The Compose window format indicates the format
I've chosen in "Options", but the receiving system (non-Outlook) shows the
message received as plain text, quoted-printable encoding.