emails with garbled html code plus text

[sogcTech]

Ever since we added Outlook 2003, an aggravating issue keeps on popping up.
Here it is. People are sending html emails from Outlook 2003 and most people
receive them ok, but a few people receive the emails with garbled html code.
The sender's email option for mail format was set at at the html option. My
temporary solution was to set the mail format as plain text.

Why are some people able to receive the html messages with no problem and a
few receive them as garbled html code.

Help!

 

[Pat Willener]

I do not quite understand the term "garbled html code". What is the
difference in the Outlook setup between people who receive correct
messages, and people who don't? Are they connected to the same mail
server? What kind of mail server?

The "garbled html code" - does it look the same on all OL clients who
get them?

 

[sogcTech]

In this example, the sender (one of my users) and the recepient (an outsider
from another organization on a different mail server) are both using Outlook
2003. The only difference is that the recepient does not have any of the
service pack upgrades which the sender has installed on her system.

This is what the recepient sees in the message part of the email (I have
only copied the first few lines). Keep in mind that the text which my user
has sent is still contained in this code (i have not included it here).

+ADw-html+AD4- +ADw-head+AD4- +ADw-meta name+AD0-Generator
content+AD0AIg-Microsoft Word 11 (filtered)+ACI-+AD4- +ADw-style+AD4-
+ADw-+ACE--- font-face +AHs-font-family:Tahoma+ADsAfQ- /+ACo- Font
Definitions +ACo-/ +AEA-font-face +AHs-font-family:Tahoma+ADs- panose-1:2 11
6 4 3 5 4 4 2 4+ADsAfQ- /+ACo- Style Definitions +ACo-/ p.MsoNormal,
li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal +AHs-margin:0in+ADs- margin-bottom:.0001pt+ADs-
font-size:12.0pt+ADs- font-family:+ACI-Times New Roman+ACIAOwB9- a:link,
span.MsoHyperlink +AHs-color:blue+ADs- text-decoration:underline+ADsAfQ-
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed +AHs-colorurple+ADs-
text-decoration:underline+ADsAfQ- span.emailstyle17
+AHs-font-family:Tahoma+ADs- color:windowtext+ADs- font-weight:normal+ADs-
font-style:normal+ADs- text-decoration:none none+ADsAfQ- span.

Any help/comments would be appreciated.

 

[Pat Willener]

This looks like something that Microsoft Word is producing.

I assume that the message in the sender's Sent Items folder looks correct?

I do not use Word as email editor, so I can't make much suggestions. Perhaps
1) Don't use Word as email editor, or
2) Ask the recipient to apply all updates.

There must be an incompatibility between the different Office 2003 versions.

 

[sogcTech]

After further research, I found out it boiled down to an encoding issue. Our
Exchange 2003 is set at Western European (ISO) and yet the outside end-user
receives the message encoded in Unicode (UTF-7). The end-user has to select
View, Encoding, then More and select Unicode (UTF-7). Then the end-user can
see this html message from my user.

Both users have Outlook 2003.

At any rate, I can either create a different message format rule for that
domain that is having the problems (on Exchange 2003) or have my user use
plain text formatting when sending out emails. For more info, check out
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/821750/en-us