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T O P I C R E V I E W
1029usr078198
Posted - December 16 2009 : 11:42:59
Symptoms
In Outlook 2003 (may apply to other versions as well), you find that when you reply to a plain text formatted email message, your message is blank until you type something. Then, everything appears, but with a dotted underline. (That underline indicates hidden text, BTW.) If you send the reply, sometimes the recipient can see the message, sometimes not. This only occurs with Plain Text messages, not HTML nor Rich Text.
Workaround
If the fix below doesn't work for you, try this workaround:
On a plain-text formatted email, click Reply or Reply to All.
Change the message type from Plain Text to HTML.
Press Ctrl+A to select the entire message.
On the Format menu, choose Font... to open the font dialog box.
Under Effects, uncheck the Hidden attribute.
Click OK until you get back to the message.
When you do that, your message will at least be delivered properly.
Fix
Once I found the workaround above, I wasn't content to stop there. It was just a case of the font being set incorrectly. I don't know how it got set incorrectly, but it needed to be fixed. I remembered that somewhere there was a place I could set which default fonts were being used. Here's what I found.
Open Outlook, but not any messages.
Click the Tools menu, then click Options... to bring up the Options dialog box.
Click the Mail Format tab.
Under Stationery and Fonts, click the Fonts... button.
In the Message Fonts box, next to When composing and reading plain text:, click the Choose Font... button.
Choose your font, even if it's the same one, and click OK.
Click OK until you get back to Outlook.
You might notice that when you're on the next-to-last step above, you only have Strikeout and Underline as effect options, but setting the font seems to automatically un-set any unavailable effect that may currently be present. That's how the Hidden effect gets removed. Make sure you close any plain-text emails you have open before trying to reply. It should work right this time.
