Message displayed in plain text (Outlook 2007)

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I have been successfully receiving a few regular email newletters for years. I recently switched from using Outlook Express to Outlook 2007. Now these newsletters are appearing in plain text instead of the usual HTML format… this includes my Woody’s Watch newsletters. I do not have the setting to change messages to plain text selected and to the best of my knowledge I have not changed any of the default settings. Am I going nuts?

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Check MSKB 831607: How to view all e-mail messages in plain text format – it may hold a clue.

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Thanks for the response but no clues there… the ‘read all standard mail in plain text’ has not been selected. I really think I’m losing the plot!

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What happens if you try the old trick of setting the option to ‘read all standard mail in plain text’, close Outlook, reboot, then change it to not selected?
Sometimes these things need a sharp nudge

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Have you looked into setting your preference with the SENDER to send the newsletters in HTML? I don’t know enough about the differences between Outlook Express and Outlook to know what you might get by default, but I’m fairly sure that if you look at your subscription details, you can specify a preference.

I think you are receiving the default format for Outlook users. If you check your preferences on the sender’s page, you will find that you can receive it as HTML, RSS (if you want it hot off the press), and so forth. The version you are getting has maximum safety and requires minimum resources, for those of us with limited bandwidth (as I am for the moment). Graphics or no graphics? Something plastered with graphics and moving parts can take a long time to load and drive you crazy. Unless you know the characteristics of a site in advance it may be more than you care to handle. On the other hand, I recall one legal site that had some of the best typography I have seen on the web, obviously with HTML, but I don’t think I can come up with the address.

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This really is frustrating… I have not changed any settings with the senders… my Woody’s Access Watch, Office Watch and Office for mere mortals is in HTML format but the Windows Secrets is in plain text. It is being sent as HTML as it is unreadable because of the code. The following is the first few lines from the last newsletter:

If your software garbles this newsletter, read this issue
at WindowsSecrets.com.

Windows Secrets
logo

YOUR NEWSLETTER PREFERENCES Change

I really feel I’m going nuts, I can’t seem to find any setting to change to fix this… it makes no sense that some work and some don’t!

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The http://etc. address is the web address that lets you view the page in your browser instead of having to worry about the garbled email, and the fact that the site states that the email may appear garbled is an acknowledgement that it is a common problem.

Just copy the address (http://etc.) portion of the text into your browser’s address bar (e.g. IE or FireFox) and you will be taken to the web page itself, which is sure to be in HTML.

Revised to add: Here is a late thought, although it probably doesn’t apply in your case. If something is being published in US English and the reader’s preferences use a different character set, then you might easily end up with mangled messages. That is the sort of thing that people at the publishing end might have to contend with.

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(Edited by HansV to make URLs clickable – see Help 19)

Thanks for the suggestions but I think I may have solved my problem.

I googled and came up with a solution on the AVG forum (here) apparently this is a common problem after installing version 8.0 of AVG free. I will have to wait now until the next ‘problem’ email.

There has been some internet discussion about the issue with Outlook not displaying all HTML email. It seems Outlook no longer uses IE7 to display emails, it is now using Word . (here)

I will post the result of the fix as soon as I know.

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Just a quick follow up foar anyone who is interested… the fix described in the previous post has worked… the latest edition of Widows secrets is in HTML as it should be!

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I’m not sure I would want to know widows’ secrets, but I’m glad the problem has been solved!

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Could you please clarify which ‘fix’ worked? I don’t see such in the previous post, and we’ve had this issue today.
N.B. The User who received our HTML Email is using AVG, however, he states that he gets other HTML Emails OK.
*confused*

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I had some trouble remembering this, but did some research.

The previously posted link was no longer very helpful, but I found what was needed at http://freeforum.avg.com/read.php?12,12579…6301#msg-156301%5B/url%5D

To prevent any future confusion I’ve attached a pdf with the information from the AVG forum

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Ah, removing the Certification.

Excellent. I’ll try that tonight.

I hope AVG fixes this though. There must be millions of people who are having this same issue with their HTML Emails being messed up.

Thanks so much for replying and clarifying.

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