Some HTML messages shown as plain text in Outlook 2003

B

bruce2u2

Some HTML messages come through as Plain Text in Outlook. Most of the
messages I receive are in HTML format, and most are displayed correctly. But
a few messages (always from the same senders) come through as Plain Text.
When an HTML message is not recognized as HTML and instead shown as Plain
Text, large portions of the message look like gobbledygook. After some study
I've figured out that what I'm seeing in the message is: 1) the internet
headers; 2) the message with embedded font codes; 3) the message in html code
with all text, font, and formatting as text. If the message includes a
picture, the binary data will be embedded as huge blocks of text.

I do not have the "show all messages in plain text" option enabled. When I
tried it, the offending messages still showed the same HTML codes. This
problem started when I upgraded from an XP computer to a Vista computer,
although I don't see why this would make a difference. I suspect that the
senders of messages that display incorrectly may have something in common.
Maybe they are using the same email program that sends HTML in a slightly
different format. But it's difficult to check this because they are mostly
from email lists where I don't know the sender well enough to quiz them about
their email programs. Other people receiving the same mail from the same
senders don't have the same display problem.

I have checked all my email options and have tried many different
combinations without any effect. I do use the AVG virus checker, and I
thought maybe it was causing the problem, but changing options in AVG had no
effect. I checked the encoding on the problem messages, but they all seem to
have valid settings.

Any ideas?

Bruce McKinney
 
B

bruce2u2

After further study I see that this is the same problem reported in June 2007
and verified by many users. See the thread "Office 2003 / Vista bug??" The
problem occurs with messages sent with BCC only (newsletters, usually). It
doesn't occur on XP. Apparently Microsoft is not going to fix this kind of
compatibility bug.
 
B

Brian Tillman

bruce2u2 said:
After further study I see that this is the same problem reported in
June 2007 and verified by many users. See the thread "Office 2003 /
Vista bug??" The problem occurs with messages sent with BCC only
(newsletters, usually). It doesn't occur on XP. Apparently Microsoft
is not going to fix this kind of compatibility bug.

Why do you say that? They're looking into it. If you want to help, send me
the problem message as a .MSG attachment. Include information on whether or
not you're using Word to read the messages and/or write the messages. I'll
pass it on.
 

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