Microsoft Outlook Problem

[Dieselhead]

All of our computers have Microsoft Outlook 2003. 99.9% of the time Outlook works quite well.

For the 0.1% of the time, the message comes through with copious amounts of header and misc. Internet jargon - usually about 3-4 times the amount of verbiage in the actual message. It does the same thing when I go through my Internet provider's (AT&T) e-mail service. However, it comes through fine on my wife's Ipad.

Any suggestions as to how to remedy?

Could this be a problem of a message being sent from an Apple computer?

 

[Fardringle]

If you see the same thing in the webmail client, then it's not a problem with Outlook. It means that something in the formatting of the original message is not being properly interpreted by Outlook or by the webmail system

 

[Charlie98]

If you see the same thing in the webmail client, then it's not a problem with Outlook. It means that something in the formatting of the original message is not being properly interpreted by Outlook or by the webmail system

This^^^

I'm running the exact same setup you are (Outlook'03 w.ATT.) To check it, sign on to the ATT mail server (in my case, it's att.yahoo.com ) and see what the email looks like.

 

[Dieselhead]

Charlie98,

As you recommended, I tried seeing what the e-mail looks in ATT mail server. It looks exactly like it does in Outlook 2003.

 

[Charlie98]

Charlie98,

As you recommended, I tried seeing what the e-mail looks in ATT mail server. It looks exactly like it does in Outlook 2003.

Then I would defer to what Fardringle said about the original email format.

I'm wondering, too... is their a consistent content to the odd emails? i.e: a script or image/video running within the email? ...perhaps a just one email provider (i.e: Google, Hotmail, mac.com... something like that? )

 

[Dieselhead]

The extra verbiage looks to be Internet instruction as well as format/font instructions. It's stuff that you would not normally see. It should be kept in the background.

 

[code65536]

That extra verbiage sounds like HTML formatting. If an e-mail is supposed to be HTML-formatted, there must be something in the e-mail's header that says this. If this is missing, then the "correct" (as in, following the specs) behavior is to interpret the message as plain text, which matches your description of what's happening.

If the iPad is showing the message "correctly", then it's probably breaking the rules and saying, "The message doesn't identify itself as HTML, but it looks like HTML, so I'll treat it as HTML". Some people think that this sort of leniency is better, some people think that it just hides bugs under the rug and is a bad idea in the long run (I'm in the latter group).

The best thing to do is to notify whoever is sending this message of the problem and tell them that the software that they use to create and/or send their e-mail is not working properly.

 

[Dieselhead]

code65536, I think you have hit upon the problem. The problematic e-mail has the "Plain Text" box checked under Format. All of the other e-mails have the "HTML" box checked under Format.

Is there any way to convert a plain text e-mail to an HTML e-mail after it has been received?

 

[code65536]

code65536, I think you have hit upon the problem. The problematic e-mail has the "Plain Text" box checked under Format. All of the other e-mails have the "HTML" box checked under Format.

Is there any way to convert a plain text e-mail to an HTML e-mail after it has been received?

I don't know; I don't use Outlook. You might try digging through the settings to see if there's something to force a particular format on a received message.

An ad-hoc solution is to open Notepad, copy-and-paste everything into it, and save it as a HTML file. Then open the HTML file in your browser.

But the best thing you can do is to notify whoever sent the mail and let them know that they have a problem. If they read their mail using a program that bends the rules of e-mail parsing, they might not even realize that they have a problem and that everyone else who uses programs that follow the rules are looking at broken messages.