Microsoft Oulook

[isadorah]

am trudging my way through Microsoft Outlook. We established specific formatting for email signatures in the office and all is well except when you reply to someone's email from the outside.

 

here is the dilemma:

if someone sends an email, and you hit reply, the email holds onto the formatting of the original message and discards all preset formatting. in otherwords, an email arrives and it is in courier black, i hit reply and instead of my portion of the message being in arial black and red 9pt type with an embedded logo, everything becomes courier black. i tried changing the Mail Format options from HTML to rich text and nothing, tried changing internet format options to be use Rich Text format and nothing. Any ideas how to keep outlook from using the settings of the received email for formatting and instead using the settings established in the program?

 

i loathe microsoft.

[lamradio]

We established specific formatting for email signatures in the office and all is well except when you reply to someone's email from the outside.

 

That's the problem. Not all email severs support the HTML format. For example if the recipient is using a different email program than Outlook, or they just don't have it enabled on their email server. When you reply back, the message will be changed to rich format.

[mfwahl]

No help here, just more bitching:

 

I use gmail and when someone sends me something from Outlook, all I get is an attachment (.eml). If the email is all text, it's in black courier and at least I can read it, but if there is a picture, it's just a bunch of symbols. I don't like Outlook.

[isadorah]

I don't like Outlook.

 

 

I loathe all things microsoft!

 

yeah it seems there's no way around this. *sigh* another piece of me lost to ugly non-matching formatting.

[cryptique]

At the risk of making your problem even more confusing ... you might be able to fudge together a macro to address this, but you'd have to run the macro every time you wanted to reply to a message, and you'd likely have to create a separate macro for the "Reply to All" command.

 

If you don't know Visual Basic (or whatever MS uses for that shit -- I don't know that stuff), it can be a pain in the ass and a lot of trial and error to record a macro, but it can be done. It's important to assign it to a key combination so you can press those keys when you want to reply to a message.

 

Without thinking too hard about it, I'd probably record the macro to open the received message (hit ENTER), select the "Other Actions" command in the Message ribbon (I'm assuming you're using Office 2007, but it would be different if you're not), choose the Edit Message command, then move to the Options ribbon and select Rich Text (or whatever format you want to use), then save the message, then (back in the Message ribbon) choose the Reply command. Of course, this would permanently change the format of the message you're replying to, but that may not be a concern. (Oh, and I can't even guarantee that this would enable you to use your chosen formatting by default.)

 

There's a lot of pressing ALT involved in that kind of navigation (I don't think you can record a macro using mouseclicks -- you have to be able to perform the desired action on the keyboard).

 

But, like I said, that's a huge pain in the butt, and may not even work the way you want it to. Microsoft doesn't make this shit easy.

 

Of course, there's probably some obscure setting somewhere that you could tweak that would quickly result in exactly the behavior you want, but I sure don't know where it might be.

[mfwahl]

I don't think this will solve your problem (I hope it might!), but I should have mentioned I figured out mine. If you rename a .eml file as .mht, you can open it with internet explorer.

[cryptique]

I don't think this will solve your problem (I hope it might!), but I should have mentioned I figured out mine. If you rename a .eml file as .mht, you can open it with internet explorer.

...but only Internet Explorer. It's a proprietary Microsoft format.

 

 

I have to use MHT where I work, and it sucks balls.

[mfwahl]

...but only Internet Explorer. It's a proprietary Microsoft format.

 

 

I have to use MHT where I work, and it sucks balls.

Wow. Once Isadorah gets her anwer, this should become a Microsoft Sucks thread.

[lamradio]

Wow. Once Isadorah gets her anwer, this should become a Microsoft Sucks thread.

 

Microsoft does suck, and if it wasn't for it's suckyness I'd be out of a job.

[isadorah]

meh, we can go ahead and make this a Microsoft sucks thread. the short answer to the email problem is that if the email you receive doesn't allow rich text formatting or html, then you're stuck with ugliness. thanks for the macro pointer cryptique. i'm having a hard enough time teaching folks how to set up an email signature, i think they would look at me like i have two heads if i tried to get them to add steps to replying to emails. it did sound good though.

 

air your microsoft gripes here.

[Good Old Neon]

Have you tried any of these solutions?

 

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/...=CL100626971033

[jenbobblehead]

my laptop running vista has lost its ability to have functioning control keys. What's up with that? How do I fix it? I have googled it and it seems no one else has this problem? Coincidentally, or not, the problem was noticed when it came back from the repair shop where it got a new power jack. Is it possible that someone got loose inside, do you think? Or does Microsoft just SUCK!?

[isadorah]

Have you tried any of these solutions?

 

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/...=CL100626971033

 

 

yeah, that's how we have it all set up right now. if someone else doesn't have their stuff set up that way, then their settings override everything else. thanks though!

[Good Old Neon]

my laptop running vista has lost its ability to have functioning control keys. What's up with that? How do I fix it? I have googled it and it seems no one else has this problem? Coincidentally, or not, the problem was noticed when it came back from the repair shop where it got a new power jack. Is it possible that someone got loose inside, do you think? Or does Microsoft just SUCK!?

 

Though Microsoft is certainly deserving of much of the scorn they receive, that particular problem sounds as though it has more to do with the hardware, and not so much the software.

[mfwahl]

Is it possible that someone got loose inside, do you think?

Laptop gnomes. You have to lure them out with bacon.

[isadorah]

since i started this thread, i have to add a digression (and can, hee hee). make it mandatory for people to have signature lines in their email and watch out. everyone gets creative. if someone can figure out how to change something or customize it, they sure do do it. people would be dangerous in my office if they all had access to photoshop and InDesign.

 

the best customization. our receptionist made her title:

 

Super Awesome Administrative Assistant/ Nicest Receptionist in the World

 

and sent it to me as a joke. we had a good chuckle, then she forgot to change it. a few of her emails went out with that as her title. it was rather funny and clever. she is leaving on Friday so she could actually get away with keeping that as her email signature with no consequence. very fun!

[isadorah]

I have a new question:

 

One of my colleagues set up his signature and now all of a sudden Outlook is adding an address card to each email he sends out as an attachment (.vcf file). I am pretty sure it is a setting somewhere that inadvertently got clicked, but can't find where that would be for the life of me. Anyone???

[mfwahl]

This is from Microsoft.com. This is how to set up a vcf file to be sent everytime. Maybe this will help reverse it.

How to include a vCard with your automatic signature

To do this, follow these steps:

On the Tools menu, click Options.

On the Mail Format tab, click Signatures.

Click New to add a new signature.

Enter a name for your signature, and then click Next.

Type the desired signature information in the text window.

In Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 and in earlier versions of Outlook, click New vCard from Contact.

 

In Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, click Business Card, select the contact that you want to add, and then click OK three times.

In the Show Names from the box, select Contacts or another address list.

Click to select the entry for which you want to create a vCard, click OK, click Finish, and then click OK to complete the signature entry.

Note If your vCard contains Notes, UserDefined fields, or Outlook-specific fields, these values are stripped from the vCard that is included with the signature. The Signature Picker specifically includes only those fields in a Contact that are essential to the definition of a vCard.

[isadorah]

This is from Microsoft.com. This is how to set up a vcf file to be sent everytime. Maybe this will help reverse it.

 

 

OMG I hate this program!!! I tried that. That's exactly where I thought it would be. One would think that's where to reverse it. That process actually inserts a card into the email (embeds it), but doesn't create an attachment. We're experiencing a rogue attachment hanging out in the email as if the guy copied and pasted the .vcf file into his signature, but it only shows up as an attachment and doesn't show up in the body of the email (or the body of the signature edit dialogue box).

 

that sound you hear, that is the sound of me banging my head on my desk.

 

[side note, my tinge of annoyance is not with you mfwahl it is with microsoft. how does the world work with this stuff on a regular basis and think its ok? it baffles me.]

[okp greg]

OMG I hate this program!!! I tried that. That's exactly where I thought it would be. One would think that's where to reverse it. That process actually inserts a card into the email (embeds it), but doesn't create an attachment. We're experiencing a rogue attachment hanging out in the email as if the guy copied and pasted the .vcf file into his signature, but it only shows up as an attachment and doesn't show up in the body of the email (or the body of the signature edit dialogue box).

 

that sound you hear, that is the sound of me banging my head on my desk.

 

[side note, my tinge of annoyance is not with you mfwahl it is with microsoft. how does the world work with this stuff on a regular basis and think its ok? it baffles me.]

 

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/...2747301033.aspx this is all I could find on it, but it appears that Microsoft thinks "stop attaching" means "help me attach"

 

my laptop running vista has lost its ability to have functioning control keys. What's up with that? How do I fix it? I have googled it and it seems no one else has this problem? Coincidentally, or not, the problem was noticed when it came back from the repair shop where it got a new power jack. Is it possible that someone got loose inside, do you think? Or does Microsoft just SUCK!?

 

http://www.puppylinux.org/

 

I would try downloading this and burning it to a cd. It's a live linux cd so when you start up your computer it will boot from the cd and go into linux. Don't worry, nothing will happen to your hard drive or your windows installation. This will just help us see whether it's an operating system/software issue or a hardware issue.

[isadorah]

ok, so we solved the added .vcf file problem by creating a new signature and then deleting the old one. no idea why the .vcf file got attached in the signature. the only way to get a .vcf to show up in an email as an attachment is to drag it into the email. and you can't drag it into the signature settings pane. bizzarrooo-ass program.

 

so here's a new one that came up today. (i tell ya everyday something new pops up with these microsoft products, i am starting to hate the idea of having electronic stationary). a colleague uses the electronic letterhead template and word decides it won't print the headers and footers. we open the file on another machine and it works fine. ok, it is a setting then. we went through screen by screen and compared the settings from one computer to another. there was an email setting box that wasn't clicked on the non-working Word. clicked that and the headers and footers print. can someone explain to me how an email preference affects if headers and footers print? OYI-veh! that question is rhetorical. i don't think Bill Gates could even answer it or explain how to use his software. i bet he owns a Mac.

[cryptique]

Meh. I've been forced to use Microsoft products for many years now, and I've generally found that if I don't expect too much from them, they don't tend to let me down. There are a ton of things I can do in Word these days that I'm quite thankful for, and as flawed a program as it is, my work life absolutely revolves around Outlook (I'm not sure how I ever lived without it).

 

I would definitely recommend, however, not using any kind of fancy stationery in Outlook. Signatures are one thing -- but stationery falls under the "expecting too much" category.

[isadorah]

Meh. I've been forced to use Microsoft products for many years now, and I've generally found that if I don't expect too much from them, they don't tend to let me down. There are a ton of things I can do in Word these days that I'm quite thankful for, and as flawed a program as it is, my work life absolutely revolves around Outlook (I'm not sure how I ever lived without it).

 

I would definitely recommend, however, not using any kind of fancy stationery in Outlook. Signatures are one thing -- but stationery falls under the "expecting too much" category.

 

 

oh, to clarify, the electronic stationary is Word templates and completely separate from the Outlook issues. I tend to lump all things Microsoft into one flawed package. I think I have been spoiled by my Apple programs and Adobe software. I mean, shouldn't everyone be able to type a bullet with a simple key stroke. I tend to forget the Microsoft suite needs lower expectations.

[cryptique]

Adobe has its issues too, of course. I use at least four different Adobe apps on a regular basis, and I've wanted to pitch each of them out the window on numerous occasions.

 

I use Adobe apps to create help systems/publications, yet their software has some of the worst, most unhelpful help I've ever seen (even worse than Microsoft's, in most cases). They've been trying to improve it, but it's merely gone from utterly useless to completely horrible. The best way to learn an Adobe program (short of immersing yourself in it for a few weeks) is to buy a third-party guide.

[okp greg]

Adobe has its issues too, of course. I use at least four different Adobe apps on a regular basis, and I've wanted to pitch each of them out the window on numerous occasions.

 

I use Adobe apps to create help systems/publications, yet their software has some of the worst, most unhelpful help I've ever seen (even worse than Microsoft's, in most cases). They've been trying to improve it, but it's merely gone from utterly useless to completely horrible. The best way to learn an Adobe program (short of immersing yourself in it for a few weeks) is to buy a third-party guide.

 

Oh god how happy I am to have passed the learning curve on photoshop, lightroom, bridge etc. the first time you open those up is like walking up to the bottom of a thousand foot cliff and being expected to just take a step up to the top off it.

 

isadorah: have you tried thunderbird at all?