I went to Google asking "Outlook grey background" and rec. this blog answer
that is the right fix:
E-mails I receive and compose in Microsoft Outlook 2003 have inexplicably
and recently begun to be displayed with a gray background!
A couple of days ago, my incoming and composed e-mails began to display with
a gray background, making them hard to read. It may be limited to
HTML-formatted or Rich Text e-mails, hard to say. I don't know if e-mails I
send arrive to the recipient with the gray background.
I may have done something dumb to activate this effect, but I've looked
through the myriad Outlook preferences and tools windows hidden throughout
the app (including Stationery), and I can't find anything to reverse the
effect. And yes, the effect persists if I restart the app and/or computer.
How can I get my normal white background back?
My system has 2GB of RAM, so I don't think it's memory-related.
Update: it definitely appears to only happen with HTML-formatted e-mails--I
went through some older messages that were filed away, and any message that
had any sort of formatting applied to it (fonts, colors, etc.) now appears
with the gray background.
Plain-text messages have a white background.
posted by wubbie at 10:31 PM on May 30
Ugh, Update #2: I figured it out. I had unchecked "Use Windows Colors" in
Microsoft INTERNET EXPLORER, which for some reason affected e-mail display in
OUTLOOK.
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It's beause Outlook is using an IE control to render HTML mail. Even text
mail is being internally translated into HTML and rendered as such (which is
why URLs in text email are clickable).
posted by aubilenon at 11:06 PM on May 30
Why would MS spend time building another browser or hacked up version of IE
when they can include the IE components right in Outlook to render your HTML?
Ergo, some of your settings travel with it.
Milly Staples said:
The sender controls the color of the email - you have not control over their
choice for formatting.
--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook}
Please post all followup questions to the newsgroups only to keep the
discussion intact.
***TominFL*** said:
I'm using Outlook 2000 and some pages of my emails are white as I want but
others come in with grey background. How can I fix this to always be white.
Help please.
