Office 2007 - Stopped highlighting message red when flagged

[derbyjohn]

I don't think I've changed any settings to cause this, but when I flag
a message, it no longer changes the type to red. Over the years, I've
come to rely heavily on this visual feature. It has been changing to
red up until today. I cannot find any problems, have restarted the
program, and have restarted my computer with no change.

Thanks,
John

 

[Roady [MVP]]

Which method of flagging do you use? Exact steps to reproduce?
Do you want it to "Flag for Follow Up" or "Flag for Recipient"?

 

[derbyjohn]

[I (OP) wrote:] ... when I flag

Which method of flagging do you use? Exact steps to reproduce?

I have the flag column showing, and I click the flag. I've also tried
right clicking, and I've tried all available options

Do you want it to "Flag for Follow Up" or "Flag for Recipient"?

I don't care--I just want to see the subject in red type so that when
I have 500 emails, I can see which ones are urgent. This works better
for me than just having a flag showing. Up to now, I have used Outlook
Express and clicked the eyeglasses, a feature I wish had been carried
over to Outlook. Again, the icons don't help, it's the red type that I
want. I would also like to be able to accomplish the same effect in my
Hotmail accounts, which I monitor through Outlook.

Any help greatly appreciated -John

 

[Roady [MVP]]

I don't care--I just want to see the subject in red type
Aha, but that is something completely different than flagging an item. A
flagged item doesn't turn the text red; it only adds a flag. Overdue e-mail
by default show in a red font in your mail list. You can of course modify
your view to also show flagged items in a red font.

For more info on this see;
http://www.howto-outlook.com/howto/coloremailadvanced.htm

--
Robert Sparnaaij [MVP-Outlook]
Coauthor, Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003


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[I (OP) wrote:] ... when I flag
a message, it no longer changes the type to red. <snip> It has been
changing to
red up until today. I cannot find any problems, have restarted the
program, and have restarted my computer with no change.

Which method of flagging do you use? Exact steps to reproduce?

I have the flag column showing, and I click the flag. I've also tried
right clicking, and I've tried all available options

Do you want it to "Flag for Follow Up" or "Flag for Recipient"?

I don't care--I just want to see the subject in red type so that when
I have 500 emails, I can see which ones are urgent. This works better
for me than just having a flag showing. Up to now, I have used Outlook
Express and clicked the eyeglasses, a feature I wish had been carried
over to Outlook. Again, the icons don't help, it's the red type that I
want. I would also like to be able to accomplish the same effect in my
Hotmail accounts, which I monitor through Outlook.

Any help greatly appreciated -John

 

[derbyjohn]

Aha, but that is something completely different than flagging an item. A
flagged item doesn't turn the text red; it only adds a flag. Overdue e-mail
by default show in a red font in your mail list. You can of course modify
your view to also show flagged items in a red font.

Thanks, Robert, but I already know this. Simply clicking the flag has
always in the past set the item to overdue. And it still does. But
only older messages show as red, newer ones do not. So it must have
stopped applying this rule, although that's strange, because
everything I flagged before the problem still shows as red. Crazy
stuff. I do appreciate the link, however; I was unaware of the
customization and will make use of it.
-John

 

[derbyjohn]

Aha, but that is something completely different than flagging an item. A
flagged item doesn't turn the text red; it only adds a flag. Overdue e-mail
by default show in a red font in your mail list. You can of course modify
your view to also show flagged items in a red font.

So I played around a little, and this is interesting: If I set a
custom flag and instantly make it overdue by manually selecting
yesterday, it comes up red. But when it's set to today, the default,
it shows up black, and does not change the next day. So the problem
may have something to do with Outlook not catching things when they
become overdue, except when mannualy set as such?

 

[Roady [MVP]]

No, there is also a reminder time. It will only show as red when you are
past that time and you haven't marked the item as "Completed" yet.

Also note that when multiple Automatic Formatting rules apply the last rule
that applied will determine the color of the item.

If you want all flagged items to show as red you can create a custom
Automatic Formatting rule for that.



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