Outlook 2007 - e-mail's appearance depending on display's DPI setting?

[Mirko]

Outlook 2007 (Office 2007 SP2); Windows XP SP3; all updates from Microsoft
Update installed


There is a strange behavior that I can reproduce like this:

1. In Windows XP under "Display Properties" -> "Settings" -> "Advanced" ->
"General" the "DPI setting" is set to "Normal size (96 DPI)".

2. In Outlook 2007 I create an e-mail in HTML format and insert pictures in
the body of the e-mail. Then I send it to someone.

3. Now I change the "DPI setting" in Windows XP to "Large size (120 DPI)"
and reboot Windows.

4. Then I create another e-mail exactly the same way I did the first time
and send it to the same person as before.

5. The recipient receives both e-mails. However, the pictures in the second
e-mail are smaller than the same pictures in the first e-mail.

Why is that? Has anyone seen this before?

Basically, if I want Outlook 2007 to keep my inserted pictures in the
original format (original resolution and no re-compression) while the
display is set to my preferred DPI setting "Large size (120 DPI)", then I
have to manually scale the "Size" of the pictures I insert from 100% to
125%. (in the e-mail right click on the picture and then "Size")

 

[VanguardLH]

Outlook 2007 (Office 2007 SP2); Windows XP SP3; all updates from Microsoft
Update installed

There is a strange behavior that I can reproduce like this:

1. In Windows XP under "Display Properties" -> "Settings" -> "Advanced" ->
"General" the "DPI setting" is set to "Normal size (96 DPI)".

2. In Outlook 2007 I create an e-mail in HTML format and insert pictures in
the body of the e-mail. Then I send it to someone.

3. Now I change the "DPI setting" in Windows XP to "Large size (120 DPI)"
and reboot Windows.

4. Then I create another e-mail exactly the same way I did the first time
and send it to the same person as before.

5. The recipient receives both e-mails. However, the pictures in the second
e-mail are smaller than the same pictures in the first e-mail.

Why is that? Has anyone seen this before?

Basically, if I want Outlook 2007 to keep my inserted pictures in the
original format (original resolution and no re-compression) while the
display is set to my preferred DPI setting "Large size (120 DPI)", then I
have to manually scale the "Size" of the pictures I insert from 100% to
125%. (in the e-mail right click on the picture and then "Size")

Google still works:

http://www.google.com/search?q=+"outlook+2007"++resize++picture++insert

which found as the first hit in its search results:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA102349021033.aspx

I know the Attachment Options button becomes available when you attach a
file. It doesn't show up if you *insert* a picture inside the body of your
e-mail. Whatever you insert should be full size unless you have used HTML
code to, say, define a frame or table of fixed size so the picture is forced
to get resized to fit within that frame or table's cell.

Since you are stuck using Word 2007 as your e-mail editor when using Outlook
2007 then perhaps the Word wizards in a newsgroup for Word might know.

 

[Mirko]

Google still works:

http://www.google.com/search?q=+"outlook+2007"++resize++picture++insert

which found as the first hit in its search results:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA102349021033.aspx

I know the Attachment Options button becomes available when you attach a
file. It doesn't show up if you *insert* a picture inside the body of
your
e-mail. Whatever you insert should be full size unless you have used HTML
code to, say, define a frame or table of fixed size so the picture is
forced
to get resized to fit within that frame or table's cell.

Since you are stuck using Word 2007 as your e-mail editor when using
Outlook
2007 then perhaps the Word wizards in a newsgroup for Word might know.

The Attachment Options don't affect embedded pictures. But anyway, "Select
picture size" is set to "Don't resize, send originals".

I do not use any special HTML code or formatting.
To demonstrate the behavior I just need to start a new e-mail in HTML
format, type the recipient's address, insert one picture in the body of the
e-mail ("Picture" button and then browse for the picture file) and click the
"Send" button.

 

[VanguardLH]

VanguardLH ...


The Attachment Options don't affect embedded pictures. But anyway,
"Select picture size" is set to "Don't resize, send originals".

I do not use any special HTML code or formatting. To demonstrate the
behavior I just need to start a new e-mail in HTML format, type the
recipient's address, insert one picture in the body of the e-mail
("Picture" button and then browse for the picture file) and click the
"Send" button.

I'd start reviewing what add-ons I had installed into Outlook at this
point. See what happens when you run Outlook in its safe mode which
does not load any add-ons that you installed.

outlook.exe /safe

For example, BxAutoZip is an add-on that will compress attachments when
they exceeded a configured threshold. It's possible you have another
add-on that changes the resolution of images inserted into the document.

Are you using Hotmail for your e-mail service? I thought I saw a couple
posts where users complained that Hotmail did some automatic compression
of e-mails that went through their servers. I'm not sure on this as it
is just a recollection of a couple posts several weeks ago.

 

[Mirko]

I'd start reviewing what add-ons I had installed into Outlook at this
point. See what happens when you run Outlook in its safe mode which
does not load any add-ons that you installed.

outlook.exe /safe

For example, BxAutoZip is an add-on that will compress attachments when
they exceeded a configured threshold. It's possible you have another
add-on that changes the resolution of images inserted into the document.

Are you using Hotmail for your e-mail service? I thought I saw a couple
posts where users complained that Hotmail did some automatic compression
of e-mails that went through their servers. I'm not sure on this as it
is just a recollection of a couple posts several weeks ago.

The e-mails already look like what the recipient gets when they are in my
"Sent Items" or my "Outbox", so it's not the e-mail service that changes the
pictures.
There are no non-Microsoft Add-ins installed. (as per "Tools" -> "Trust
Center" -> "Add-ins")
Still tried "outlook.exe /safe", but made no difference.

There is the saying that a picture is worth a thousand words, so I decided
to take some screenshots.

Compose the first e-mail. Windows XP DPI setting: 96dpi.
To insert the picture in the e-mails I used "Insert" -> "Picture" and
browsed for the file.
(the picture in the e-mail is just a sample PNG image for testing,
resolution 534x600)
http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/8057/createemaildisplay96dpi.png

The same e-mail as received by the recipient.
http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/1775/email1e.png
I saved the picture from this e-mail to disk. It is 100% the same PNG file
that I originally inserted.

Compose the second e-mail. Windows XP now set to 120dpi.
http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/4421/createemaildisplay120dp.png

The second e-mail as received by the recipient.
http://img200.imageshack.us/img200/1484/email2f.png
Saved the picture to disk. It is a JPG file with a resolution of 427x480
(smaller than the original).


In the meantime I found out that if I open the picture with some viewer
software (e.g. InfanView), copy it from there into the Windows clipboard
(Ctrl-C) and paste it into the body of the e-mail at the cursor position
(Ctrl-V), then the picture is automatically scaled to 125%. Also at the
recipient side the picture arrives correctly.
http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/4421/createemaildisplay120dp.png
http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/2298/email3.png
The only problem with this Copy/Paste version is, that you can't really
control how Outlook compresses the images.

Anyway, if the pictures are correctly scaled when inserted using Copy/Paste,
but are scaled wrong when doing "Insert" -> "Picture" -> browse for file,
then this leads me to believe this is a bug in Outlook 2007. Or is it not?

 

[VanguardLH]

With pre-2007 versions of Outlook, the user had a choice of whether to
use the Outlook embedded new-mail editor or to use Word as the new-mail
editor. As of version 2007, Outlook users are forced to use Word as the
new-mail editor.

To isolate if it is a Word issue on resizing the pictures inserted into
a document when at a non-standard DPI setting, I'd try using a real HTML
editor (Word isn't one of them) to compose your HTML-formatted document
and then use its Send E-mail function to e-mail *that* specific HTML
code. See what the recipient receives. If there is no change in
resolution (size) of the received picture then it certainly appears to
be a "feature" of Word that is causing a resizing of inserted images.

 

[Mirko]

With pre-2007 versions of Outlook, the user had a choice of whether to
use the Outlook embedded new-mail editor or to use Word as the new-mail
editor. As of version 2007, Outlook users are forced to use Word as the
new-mail editor.

To isolate if it is a Word issue on resizing the pictures inserted into
a document when at a non-standard DPI setting, I'd try using a real HTML
editor (Word isn't one of them) to compose your HTML-formatted document
and then use its Send E-mail function to e-mail *that* specific HTML
code. See what the recipient receives. If there is no change in
resolution (size) of the received picture then it certainly appears to
be a "feature" of Word that is causing a resizing of inserted images.

Thank you for all the replies.
I am somewhat limited in what software I can install on my work computer, so
I will just continue to use Office/Outlook 2007 and manually set the size of
all the pictures I insert to 125% (so that they are sent unmodified).