OT: Outlook message formats

[Charles Oppermann]

> An option Outlook loves to ignore, just like it loves to ignore to use
> ASCII only.

I'm not aware that Outlook will ignore the settings that control how
original text is presented.  In my experience, it's always respected the
current setting.

When you say "use ASCII only" are you referring to the character set to use,
or possibly the option to create messages using "plain text"?

Many people get tripped up by the "message format" option.  There are three
options - plain text, rich text and HTML.  Actually, the label for this
option is "Compose in this message format".

This option only controls what the default format will be for a new
message - it does not control what format is used when replying or
forwarding messages.  There are good reasons to match the received format,
but I admit it's confusing to many when they want to send a plain text reply
to a HTML message.  In those cases, the format of the reply/forward can be
changed from the menu.

If you want to ignore non-plain text in messages, you can set the "Read all
standard mail in plain text" option.  This is in the E-mail options dialog
in Outlook 2003.  If you have an older version, you can set a registry entry
to affect the same result.

This simply means that Outlook will use the "text/plain" MIME body part when
presenting messages.  Thus, all replies and forwards of received messages
will start out in the "Plain text" format.

Please forgive this off-topic posting.

---Chuck