Setting the default Character set

[m_lazarid]

Hi,
Everytime I create a new message (HTML) the character encoding is set to Default, the problem is that if I don't change it to UTF8 the receipients (yahoo, gmail, Outlook client) get strange character. Is there a way to set UTF8 as the default character set ?
Using OSX mail app does not create such problems.
I am using Entourage 2008/Leopard.

Thank u in advance

 

[William Smith]

Hi,
Everytime I create a new message (HTML) the character encoding is set to
Default, the problem is that if I don't change it to UTF8 the
receipients (yahoo, gmail, Outlook client) get strange character. Is
there a way to set UTF8 as the default character set ?
Using OSX mail app does not create such problems.
I am using Entourage 2008/Leopard.

Thank u in advance

Changing to UTF8 is not required to send to Yahoo, Gmail or Outlook
recipients. Your message contains characters that are outside the
US-ASCII set of characters.

Are you replying to someone or creating new messages? What language are
you using?

--

bill

William M. Smith, Microsoft Interop MVP - Mac/Windows
Entourage Help Page <http://entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>

 

[m_lazarid]

hi Bill,
thank you for your reply. You are right about the US-ASCII. I'm composing a message using the Greek language. Even though i can write in Greek (internatiional settings in my mac includes the Greek language) when there receipient opens the message question marks are displayed. It happens to all email or web clients (even to our company exchange server). If I select UTF8 as the character encoding (in the compose new message) everything works fine. It sees that then "default" encoding is something else (!?). Ok I can solve my problem by just selecting UTF8 every time I compose a message but it is annoying.

Michael

 

[William Smith]

hi Bill,
thank you for your reply. You are right about the US-ASCII. I'm
composing a message using the Greek language. Even though i can write in
Greek (internatiional settings in my mac includes the Greek language)
when there receipient opens the message question marks are displayed. It
happens to all email or web clients (even to our company exchange
server). If I select UTF8 as the character encoding (in the compose new
message) everything works fine. It sees that then "default" encoding is
something else (!?). Ok I can solve my problem by just selecting UTF8
every time I compose a message but it is annoying.

Hi Michael!

Entourage should automatically send your messages in UTF-8, if
necessary, if Format --> Character Set is set to Automatic. You may
receive a warning that your message will be sent as UTF-8 but you can
select the option to not display this warning and just send instead. The
conversion still happens.

Hope this helps!

--

bill

William M. Smith, Microsoft Interop MVP - Mac/Windows
Entourage Help Page <http://entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>

 

[m_lazarid]

Hi Bill,

What happens is the following :
Case 1
1. Open Entourage
2. Click New (message)
3. Type Greek
4. Send the message (no warning of UTF nothing)
Result = The client get question marks
Case 2
1. Open Entourage
2. Click New (message)
3. Change the Encoding from Default to UTF8
4, Type Greek
5. Send the message
Result = OK

I was wondering if there is a setting that eliminates step 5 (!)
--
Michael

 

[William Smith]

Hi Bill,

What happens is the following :
Case 1
1. Open Entourage
2. Click New (message)
3. Type Greek
4. Send the message (no warning of UTF nothing)
Result = The client get question marks
Case 2
1. Open Entourage
2. Click New (message)
3. Change the Encoding from Default to UTF8
4, Type Greek
5. Send the message
Result = OK

Are you sure you both have the same fonts? Are you sending HTML or plain
text? I suggest using plain text if possible. When I try to send
something in plain text that requires UTF-8 then I'm alerted I'll be
sending UTF-8 and it converts automatically.

I suspect your problem may not be that you need UTF-8 but that UTF-8 is
solving another problem. But I'm not sure.

--

bill

William M. Smith, Microsoft Interop MVP - Mac/Windows
Entourage Help Page <http://entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>

 

[m_lazarid]

Hi Bill,
I'm using Arial fonts and send HTML message. I try to use plain text but the behavior is the same. Anyway it is strange, I just hoped that there is a way to force UTF8 as default. I will have to remember to set UTF8 every time I write a message containing Greek characters.

thank you very much for your effort to help me
Michael

 

[ewykas]

I will have to remember to set UTF8 every time I write a message containing Lithuania characters.

It's veeerrrryyyy (*&&*^&^%%%%$&%^&%^&%&^%%&^^%)

It's bug and must be fixed!!!!!

m_lazarid> i have the same problem....

 

[a.gkourtsenko]

Guys,

I saw some posts earlier about the Greek character set. I imported my
mails in Greek from Outlook into Entourage and when I view them now
they all have question marks instead of proper characters. Any idea
how to sort this out? Searched the net, but did not come across
anything really... I tried changing the character sets in Entourage
but nothing seems to work... tried the Greek and the Unicode ones, but
it's no use... Any help?

 

[m_lazarid]

Guys,

I saw some posts earlier about the Greek character set. I imported my
mails in Greek from Outlook into Entourage and when I view them now
they all have question marks instead of proper characters. Any idea
how to sort this out? Searched the net, but did not come across
anything really... I tried changing the character sets in Entourage
but nothing seems to work... tried the Greek and the Unicode ones, but
it's no use... Any help?

Hi gkourtsenko,

I think it's too late to do anything. The character set was changed during the import so whatever you see now cannot be changed (as far as I know)... it's not a matter of formatting or changing fonts. :frown:

 

[sstoupak]

This is how we do it in Greece:

1. Save the following AppleScript (created by Loizos Pavlides,
modified for Entourage 2008 by Spiros Stoupakis) in ~/Documents/
Microsoft User Data/Entourage Script Menu Items.

-- figure out which messages to process
on run
tell application "Microsoft Entourage"
set |THEMESSAGES| to the outgoing messages of the outbox folder
repeat with |THEMSG| in |THEMESSAGES|
my |PROCESSMSG|(|THEMSG|)
end repeat
end tell
end run

-- process the messages
on |PROCESSMSG|(|THEMSG|)
set the «class qpro» of |THEMSG| to {«class chrS»:"ISO-8859-7"}
if «class dlvs» of |THEMSG| is «constant Edlvunst» then
«event mailsend» |THEMSG|
end if
end |PROCESSMSG|

2. In Entourage, go to menu: Tools/Schedules and in the window that
opens double click: Send & Receive All.
3. In the Action field select: Run AppleScript.
4. Click the button: Script... and select the script you have just
saved.
5. Set the frequency of the schedule (e.g. run every 5 minutes) and
enable it.
6. Type your new message in greek and SELECT TO SEND IT LATER (Message/
Send Message Later).

Within the next 5 minutes the message will get the correct greek
character set (ISO-8859-7) and will be send. If you can't wait, press
the button: Send/Receive.

 

[amavro]

This is how we do it in Greece:

1. Save the following AppleScript (created by Loizos Pavlides,
modified for Entourage 2008 by Spiros Stoupakis) in ~/Documents/
Microsoft User Data/Entourage Script Menu Items.

-- figure out which messages to process
on run
        tell application "Microsoft Entourage"
                set |THEMESSAGES| to the outgoing messagesof the outbox folder
                repeat with |THEMSG| in |THEMESSAGES|
                        my |PROCESSMSG|(|THEMSG|)
                end repeat
        end tell
end run

-- process the messages
on |PROCESSMSG|(|THEMSG|)
        set the «class qpro» of |THEMSG| to {«class chrS»:"ISO-8859-7"}
        if «class dlvs» of |THEMSG| is «constant Edlvunst»then
                «event mailsend» |THEMSG|
        end if
end |PROCESSMSG|

2. In Entourage, go to menu: Tools/Schedules and in the window that
opens double click: Send & Receive All.
3. In the Action field select: Run AppleScript.
4. Click the button: Script... and select the script you have just
saved.
5. Set the frequency of the schedule (e.g. run every 5 minutes) and
enable it.
6. Type your new message in greek and SELECT TO SEND IT LATER (Message/
Send Message Later).

Within the next 5 minutes the message will get the correct greek
character set (ISO-8859-7) and will be send. If you can't wait, press
the button: Send/Receive.

any other way without sending later ?...i am using exchange so it is a
nightmare to do all the time that when i want to send an email.

giasou file...ante na doume me ti microsoft epiteloous..!..pros to
paron xrisimopoiw to mail tou leopard gia exchange..logo tou
encoding..

 

[evzen.mayer]

any other way without sending later ?...i am using exchange so it is a
nightmare to do all the time that when i want to send an email.

giasou file...ante na doume me ti microsoft epiteloous..!..pros to
paron xrisimopoiw to mail tou leopard gia exchange..logo tou
encoding..

There's rather simple workaround which works for me perfectly. Simply
put into your signature an EURO sign somewhere, give it white colour
(= it's not visible) and voila - it's done. The simple fact that EURO
sign is presented in message is one of the reasons when Entourage
decide to use UTF-8 encoding for it.

Evzen

 

[m_lazarid]

There's rather simple workaround which works for me perfectly. Simply
put into your signature an EURO sign somewhere, give it white colour
(= it's not visible) and voila - it's done. The simple fact that EURO
sign is presented in message is one of the reasons when Entourage
decide to use UTF-8 encoding for it.

Evzen

YES IT WORKS !
Thank you for your solution Evzen. It is so stupid for us to try figure out a way to make it work when it should be working from the beginning.

Thanks again.

 

[skous]

Do you also face problems with the encoding of the filenames of the
attachments?

Whenever I attach something that is in Greek for example, the
recipient gets the file but the filename is just underscores (like
____ ____.doc)

Any help here?

 

[Diane Ross]

Do you also face problems with the encoding of the filenames of the
attachments?

Whenever I attach something that is in Greek for example, the
recipient gets the file but the filename is just underscores (like
____ ____.doc)

Any help here?

Placing the files in a folder then zipping should work.

One user gave this as a workaround for text in a message. It might work for
attachments.

===============================

There's rather simple workaround which works for me perfectly. Simply
put into your signature an EURO sign somewhere, give it white colour
(= it's not visible) and voila - it's done. The simple fact that EURO
sign is presented in message is one of the reasons when Entourage
decide to use UTF-8 encoding for it.

Evzen

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