Outlook Sometimes Stripping HTML Formatting

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I support a small office running Exchange Server 2003 with a mix of Outlook 2003/2007 clients. I have a problem where the HTML formatting of received messages is sometimes stripped, leaving only the text. What I’ve been able to determine so far:

* The problem only happens when the Outlook user is logged out of Windows or the computer is off at the time of message delivery, but only sometimes.
* It’s not simply a display-settings problem. The copy of the message on the server has apparently had the formatting stripped – viewing with Outlook Web Access shows only plain text for the messages in question.
* The same message sent to multiple Exchange users is delivered unmodified to some but stripped to others.

Sorry for the fuzziness of the information, but it’s taken me a couple of months just to get this far. Has anyone seen this? Any suggestions on what else I can to to troubleshoot?

Thanks.

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I support a small office running Exchange Server 2003 with a mix of Outlook 2003/2007 clients. I have a problem where the HTML formatting of received messages is sometimes stripped, leaving only the text.

We’ve had some threads in the past about HTML format messages showing the “source” and not the HTML version. The inconsistency is peculiar, especially different copies of the message behaving differently. Could any mobile devices or remote access be affecting the mail store?

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The person most often affected is not a mobile user at all, and doesn’t even use Outlook Remote Access. I treat her and two others as kind of a “control group” because they are all copied on a certain html-formatted order form that shows up several times a week.. One of the three sees the problem occasionally, one has only seen it twice, and one has never seen it at all.

A few others in the office have seen this once or twice, not enough to spot a pattern.

I have turned on Outlook logging, but nothing unusual shows up for the affected messages. Nothing in the Exchange logs, either.

To be clear, it’s not that the html source is displayed. Rather, all the html tags have been stripped from the message, leaving only the text.

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* It’s not simply a display-settings problem. The copy of the message on the server has apparently had the formatting stripped – viewing with Outlook Web Access shows only plain text for the messages in question.

To be clear, it’s not that the html source is displayed. Rather, all the html tags have been stripped from the message, leaving only the text.

Sorry I misinterpreted that. I believe that when most email programs compose an HTML format message, they attach the HTML code as an attachment, and include the text in the message body. Mail agents that understand HTML use the HTML version, while mail agents that don’t (such as my Windows Mobile ActiveSync client) display the text body. Which leads to this thought: perhaps a security filter or something else is stripping the HTML attachment?

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Sorry I misinterpreted that. I believe that when most email programs compose an HTML format message, they attach the HTML code as an attachment, and include the text in the message body. Mail agents that understand HTML use the HTML version, while mail agents that don’t (such as my Windows Mobile ActiveSync client) display the text body. Which leads to this thought: perhaps a security filter or something else is stripping the HTML attachment?

As it happens, the most common case involves order forms from the company’s online shopping cart, which I set up. The HTML is definitely part of the message body, not attached. The shopping cart has been that way for 5 years, and worked fine until maybe 3-6 months ago. There have been no version upgrades in Outlook or Exchange, just maintenance updates.

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Sorry I misinterpreted that. I believe that when most email programs compose an HTML format message, they attach the HTML code as an attachment, and include the text in the message body. Mail agents that understand HTML use the HTML version, while mail agents that don’t (such as my Windows Mobile ActiveSync client) display the text body. Which leads to this thought: perhaps a security filter or something else is stripping the HTML attachment?

FWIW, I am having similar problems.

I am using Outlook 2010 x86 under Windows 7 x64 and have regularly sent out HTML emails for over 10 years that contain graphics, to specific vendors (I have HTML set as the default).

Note that the graphics included are normally simply selected with my mouse, I Ctrl-C to copy the selection, and then Shift-Ins/Ctrl-V/etc. to paste into the email.

I always address the email to me, and my vendors are entered in the BCC field.

Some emails that I send get back to me fine, while others have their graphics stripped from the message and added as JPG attachments.

Thoughts are welcome.

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Some emails that I send get back to me fine, while others have their graphics stripped from the message and added as JPG attachments.

If you notice a pattern of problems with PNG format images (you may not know unless you right-click the image and check Properties for its file name), perhaps this thread will help: OL 2007 Logo in signature getting down sampled.

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If you notice a pattern of problems with PNG format images (you may not know unless you right-click the image and check Properties for its file name), perhaps this thread will help: OL 2007 Logo in signature getting down sampled.

Hi — I looked at that thread and noted that I already had Allow PNG as a graphics format checked, so that wasn’t it for me.

Note also that I did not do a fresh install, but upgraded from Outlook 2007 to Outlook 2010 x86; I had no anamolies with Outlook 2007 regarding this matter.

If relevent, additional settings there are:

Image Size and Quality:

Unchecked: Discard editing data
Checked: Do not compress images in file

Set default target output to: 220 ppi

Web Options/Browsers

Target Browsers
People who view this Web page will be using:
Microsoft® Internet Explorer® 6 or later

Each choice above gives smaller Web pages than the choice before

Options

Checked: Allow PNG as a graphics format
Unchecked: Disable features not supported by these browsers
Checked: Rely on CSS for font formatting
Checked: Rely on VML for displaying graphics in browsers
Checked: Save new Web pages as Single File Web Pages

Web Options/Encoding

BLANK: Reload the current document as:

Save this document as: Western European (Windows)

Unchecked: Always save Web pages in the default encoding

Web Options/Fonts

Character Set: English/Western European/Other Latin script

Certainly a good thought. Thanks.

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Just a thought… sometimes users change options in Outlook not realizing the consequence… check this link out from MS MS Plain Text Option

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Just a thought… sometimes users change options in Outlook not realizing the consequence… check this link out from MS MS Plain Text Option

Every setting I can find is set correctly. Plus, messages that are delivered while Outlook is online are unaffected.

I keep thinking it’s some sort of Exchange/Outlook interaction, but I can’t find any clues to point me in a useful direction.

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I keep thinking it’s some sort of Exchange/Outlook interaction, but I can’t find any clues to point me in a useful direction.

Could the Out of Office Assistant be involved somehow?

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Could the Out of Office Assistant be involved somehow?

Hmmm. That sounds just odd enough to be a possibility. I’ll have a look the next time I’m onsite. Not much to see using Outlook Web Access.

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The reason I think it is user-based is that it is not occurring on every machine… the point that it only happens on a few suggests it may be a more of a desktop issue?

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The reason I think it is user-based is that it is not occurring on every machine… the point that it only happens on a few suggests it may be a more of a desktop issue?

Backing up this thought is a discovery I made this morning, something I’ve been trying for a long time to catch.

The main problem computer was off for a week while the person was on vacation. I was watching the incoming messages with Outlook Web Access, and everything looked fine. This morning she turns on the computer, loads Outlook, and the HTML is magically stripped form the messages, even as seen from Outlook Web Access.

This is the most detailed information I’ve found to date. It seems clear that Outlook is stripping the formatting and writing it back to the Exchange store. BUT ONLY FOR MESSAGES THAT ARRIVED WHEN THE COMPUTER WAS OFF!

So what does Outlook do differently with these messages? Or could Exchange still be involved somehow?

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It seems clear that Outlook is stripping the formatting and writing it back to the Exchange store. BUT ONLY FOR MESSAGES THAT ARRIVED WHEN THE COMPUTER WAS OFF!

It’s hard to think of anything that would fit the pattern. Does the user have any antispam or other filtering software that might be firing up at startup but then later be turned off, either manually or automatically?

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It’s hard to think of anything that would fit the pattern. Does the user have any antispam or other filtering software that might be firing up at startup but then later be turned off, either manually or automatically?

AVG 9.0 and Spysweeper. Those have been on the computer for a long time, before the Outlook problem started. I’ll have to check the update history, though.

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I haven’t the foggiest.

Have you tried pursuing this directly with Microsoft? I bet they’d be interested in getting to the bottom of it…

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I haven’t the foggiest.

Have you tried pursuing this directly with Microsoft? I bet they’d be interested in getting to the bottom of it…

No, but that will probably be next, unless I think of something while showering…

What’s interesting is that if I open a sent HTML formatted email, choose to edit it, I see that it is, in fact, an HTML formatted email (I have HTML, TEXT, RTF buttons on my Quick Access Toolbar, so I can just look and see); if I open the received version of that very email (I sent it to myself), it displays the text, the graphics are there as JPG attachment(s), and when I open it to edit, I see that the received email is in TEXT format.

The questions are at what point is the email being being reformatted — upon being sent or upon being received — and how to correct this behavior?

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What’s interesting is that if I open a sent HTML formatted email, choose to edit it, I see that it is, in fact, an HTML formatted email (I have HTML, TEXT, RTF buttons on my Quick Access Toolbar, so I can just look and see); if I open the received version of that very email (I sent it to myself), it displays the text, the graphics are there as JPG attachment(s), and when I open it to edit, I see that the received email is in TEXT format.

Did you upgrade from Office 2003 or Office 2007?

Here’s a stab in the dark… Let me assume you use a POP/SMTP or IMAP account, not an Exchange Server account, to send these messages. In early versions of Outlook, you could set a checkbox on a contact record to always send to that recipient in plain text format. (Now you double-click the address to access this setting.) However, because your results are inconsistent, that may not apply. Still, it may be worth checking the properties on a problem message or two in Sent Items. Double-click your address next to “To” to see whether the “Internet Format” is something other than “Let Outlook decide the best format.”

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Did you upgrade from Office 2003 or Office 2007?

Here’s a stab in the dark… Let me assume you use a POP/SMTP or IMAP account, not an Exchange Server account, to send these messages. In early versions of Outlook, you could set a checkbox on a contact record to always send to that recipient in plain text format. (Now you double-click the address to access this setting.) However, because your results are inconsistent, that may not apply. Still, it may be worth checking the properties on a problem message or two in Sent Items. Double-click your address next to “To” to see whether the “Internet Format” is something other than “Let Outlook decide the best format.”

Correct, I use POP3 accounts, rather than Exchange Server accounts.

Note that you can still choose default formats for individual accounts…

Regardless, using the same email account (mine), on the same PC, if I send the message to myself, the email residing in my Sent folder retains my composition and is in HTML format, but the email I receive is in text format with jpg attachments.

Since we’re talking about going to a website, mouse-selecting a portion of the page, Ctrl-C’ing it, and then Shft-Ins’ing into a new HTML-set email, could it be that it is related to the type of graphic that is being inserted?

The reason I ask is that I have been using Thornsoft’s ClipMate for a decade(?), overriding Windows’ clipboard, with no problems. In Options/Settings it has an App Profile tab where I might find a solution. It looks like:

Outlook 2010 certainly looks like it is rendering graphics differently than it did in Outlook 2007.

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I have no experience with 2010, so I don’t know whether there is something new to 2010 that would trigger a format conversion.

If you think the clipboard software might be involved, it sounds easy enough to test with it turned off.

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I have no experience with 2010, so I don’t know whether there is something new to 2010 that would trigger a format conversion.

If you think the clipboard software might be involved, it sounds easy enough to test with it turned off.

Naw, I’d rather blame my wife. Someone has got to take responsibility for my actions, no?

Thanks.

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I have no experience with 2010, so I don’t know whether there is something new to 2010 that would trigger a format conversion.

If you think the clipboard software might be involved, it sounds easy enough to test with it turned off.

I just exited ClipMate, rebooted without ClipMate, and Windows 7’s clipboard had the same result. Good idea, though. Thanks.

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We are still looking at our PNG issue because it is so mysterious… We found that when we send the email off and get it back from a client, the PNG images are downsampled to very low res JPGs, but it gets better than that! Once we corrected our issue in Word to not compress images, and sent off an email message, the images still came back in the PNG format, as if the client’s mail program was creating the same low res JPG. The image looks down sampled, but the low res file is not attached. There is a caching problem going on somewhere, but we have yet to discover where… our local mailbox, our exchange server or the client’s mail program. We are likely going to overcome our issue simply by creating a jpg for our signature files, but it doesn’t explain what is going on with the PNG files at all!

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