# Outlook - changing html to plain text and removing links



## BungyAlan (Sep 12, 2004)

My Outlook is possessed! Not all the time but random times and messages, it changes the email message from html format to plain text and deactivates the links inside the message.
Does anyone have a clue why and how to fix it? Thanks! Alan


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## cwwozniak (Nov 29, 2005)

Hi Alan,

Some details may help us to help you ...

What version of Outlook?

What Operating System are you running?

Is this happening on incoming HTML messages?

Is this happening to HTML formatted messages as you are creating them or when you send them?


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## BungyAlan (Sep 12, 2004)

cwwozniak,
It's Outlook 2003, running on XP Pro, and as far as I know it's only on incoming emails, and seems random. Thanks! Alan


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## Rollin_Again (Sep 4, 2003)

Just for clarification, are you stating that the email arrives as html format with active links and html formatting and is just randomly changing to text or are you saying that some emails come as html and some as text?

Regards,
Rollin


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## BungyAlan (Sep 12, 2004)

Rollin,
The emails are sent as html with active links inside them, but my Outlook converts them to plain text and the links are still in blue and underlined, but they do not work. I have to copy and paste them into my browser.

Thanks, 
Alan


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## tonyottaino (May 4, 2008)

I am having that same issue. Some emails come in with URLs activated, others do not. It's strange. When I create one it does so with no problem. It's only in the receiving and it's not all the time.


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## Rockn (Jul 29, 2001)

Not on an Exchange server by chance? Lots of admins do not allow HTML formatted email.


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## tonyottaino (May 4, 2008)

Rockn,
No, this is at home. I have verizon dsl and is my isp. 
Thanks for your time.


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## piowaty (Aug 18, 2004)

If you do, chances are that if you turn off the "scan incoming emails" feature in the email scanner that this will disappear. I just spent 2 hours trying to troubleshoot outlook and exchange server only to realize that the tags on my email messages that worked had the 7.5 version on them, and the plain text came in with the 8.0 upgrade version of AVG. 

Good luck and please post your results here. 

-T


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## tonyottaino (May 4, 2008)

Thanks for your idea, but I do not have the anti virus program. I use the free version of McAfee distributed by AOL.


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## jimr381 (Jul 20, 2007)

Try this:
"Tools">>"Options">>"Mail Format" tab from the menu bar. Check out the formatting section for new messages. Also check the formatting of your signatures for replies and forwards.


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## ronjie (Sep 12, 2002)

Ok... this might turn to a long message but please bear with me:

Windows XP Home SP3
Outlook 2003
( I also have AVG Free 8 that I'm really leary of turning off the mail scanner, what with all the email fraud out there )

I find this situation typical with email that comes in from hotmail.

Where do I start? 

Ok, humming along and only after I've done some Microsoft / Windows updates do I see this issue.

Tried to do a detect and repair, NG.
Called MS, and allthough most of the techs are from overseas, they were willing to try to help.
One tech told me to download the new hotmail connector ( seems the difference is that the origional connector in Outlook is an Http connector, the new one is an IMAP connector ) works for a while and then goes back to ruining graphic email.

Same one told me to uninstall and reinstall worked for short time then reverted.

I have been on the phone with different MS techs that have remoted into my machine, will check some things here, and uncheck others... but no good.

Another tech remotely created on my computer another profile... that worked for a short time too... but reverted.

I just uninstalled and reinstalled, and am finally frustrated. I did search and found this forum, hope you guys can help.

I'm finding that not even strictly html emails are converted, but even if a friend sends me an email with formatted text, outlook will sometimes convert, and sometimes not.

Another tech said something about corrupted entries in my registry, but didn't elaborate, as he wanted to see if his other solution would worked. It did - for a short time.

Oh, also tried going back from Windows Live Hotmail, to the classic Hotmail. No help there either.

Please help me!

Thanx,

Ron V.


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## jimr381 (Jul 20, 2007)

Is this happening for incoming or outgoing mail messages?


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## Trefor (Jul 1, 2008)

I am having the same problem. I use a profile for work email via exchange and a different profie for email at home. So this is not profile or ISP/Exchange specific. Its only on incoming emails that I know were sent in HTML, when I open the email they are plain text and any attachments get convert to "Untitled Attachment" that is now un readable. Its not all incoming emails, but I have not worked out any common elements between them.


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## ronjie (Sep 12, 2002)

jimr381 said:


> Is this happening for incoming or outgoing mail messages?


right now my only concern is with the incoming messages, my outgoing seem to be ok, i usually bcc myself when I write and the seem to come back ok.

Ron V.


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## jimr381 (Jul 20, 2007)

There is usually an information bar at the top of the message that states "This message was converted to plain text..." If you click on it you should have an option to view it as html. Have you talked to your mail server administrator to see if they are blocking HTML formatted messages? I know of multiple places that automatically convert HTML to plain text.


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## ronjie (Sep 12, 2002)

Jim,

PLEASE re read my message.



jimr381 said:


> There is usually an information bar at the top of the message that states "This message was converted to plain text..." If you click on it you should have an option to view it as html.


If you try this yourself, you will find that this option ONLY works when you are replying, forwarding or composing messages, This wont' help me to read incoming mail. Even when it comes to replying or forwarding, it may change the format, but it's still the text message you see and not the origional graphics message.



jimr381 said:


> Have you talked to your mail server administrator to see if they are blocking HTML formatted messages? I know of multiple places that automatically convert HTML to plain text.


Jim,

AS I SAID IN MY MESSAGE, I'm finding this to happen with the built in connector from Outlook to Hotmail. Continuous calls to Microsoft and having them call me tries all the possible solutions ALREADY MENTIONED IN THE PREVIOUS MESSAGE. It's because Microsoft can't seem to help me that I'm resorting to forums.

I hate to admit it Jim, but you bring up one good point. I'm now finding that Outlook "claims" to send message, but now isn't. I've a long time ago made it a habit to send a bcc to myself to make sure messages go out, thing is, the sent folder in Outlook and at Hotmail's webmail site don't show it, so I'm having to send those messages again with the webmail interface, which bites, as I don't have the same formatting control that I would with Outlook.

<sigh> search still goes on.

Ron V.


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## jimr381 (Jul 20, 2007)

Well Ron I Was Responding To Both You And The Second Poster Who Piggy Backed On Your Thread And Informing All Of Some Issues That Sometimes Arise. Caps Does Not Usually Go Over To Well With Me With It's Connotation And All. If You Are Coming For Help, Then Please Do Not Bring The Attitude. This Is A Free Support Forum And Not Your Personal Help Desk, Even Though I Will Extend The Respect To You The High Level Service I Would Extend For User's At My Job As Well.


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## ronjie (Sep 12, 2002)

jimr381 said:


> Well Ron I Was Responding To Both You And The Second Poster Who Piggy Backed On Your Thread And Informing All Of Some Issues That Sometimes Arise. Caps Does Not Usually Go Over To Well With Me With It's Connotation And All. If You Are Coming For Help, Then Please Do Not Bring The Attitude. This Is A Free Support Forum And Not Your Personal Help Desk, Even Though I Will Extend The Respect To You The High Level Service I Would Extend For User's At My Job As Well.


Ok, Jim, in this connotation I will give you my deepest apologies. It was just that the way the answers came in, I thought that you were intending them for me. Unfortunately, the way things looked, I was getting the same kinds of answers that I was getting from MS TS, which didn't help me much and just furthered my frustrations. My response was venting, and I guess you're right, you were not entitled to that.



jimr381 said:


> Well Ron I Was Responding To Both You And The Second Poster Who Piggy Backed On Your Thread And Informing All Of Some Issues That Sometimes Arise.


Might I suggest Jim, that in the future you address who you are sending your replies to?

FYI, besides the Hotmail account, I have 1 other IMAP account and 2 POP3 accounts. Outlook 2003 is beginning to look like it's just coming apart on me, no matter how many times i try to unload it and reload.

I hope someone can help me. I'm going from webmail to webmail and lost my calendar because I just can't feel like I can trust this thing to work.

Ron V.


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## DaveA (Nov 16, 1999)

I do NOT think it is Outlook that is doing this. Check your setting in the McAfee program as it has been know to do this type of blocking.


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## jimr381 (Jul 20, 2007)

Ron when you said that the Tech had you create another profile, was it a windows or Outlook profile?


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## ronjie (Sep 12, 2002)

an outlook profile.

BTW, as per other information that I had gathered on this, there seems to be a limit to the size of the pst file, typically 2g, but for Outlook 2003 and 2007 it's supposed to use a different format and allow for 20g ( per microsoft website ) I wasn't sure how to change this as the information to changing it in the registry didn't make a lot of sense to me. ( some of the paths listed were not conistant with what I had )

So what I did was create another pst file and dumped all the stuff I wasn't using immediately into the second pst file, but attached it so that I could still have access to it via outlook. Then uninstalled it, ran a defrag (actually ran Norton's SpeedDisk ) on my h/d and then reinstalled it. As usual, it worked for a short time and "broke" again. I went to look at my pst files and neither were near the 2g mark.

Ron V.


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## bjc90278 (Jan 15, 2001)

Thanks to what Piowaty said earlier, it dawned on me that my problems started just about the time I updated AVG antivirus to 8.0 - so I turned off "email scanner" and it now works perfectly. Must be something they did in the upgrade that converted html to plain text. Thanks, Piowaty - good advice!


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## slurpee55 (Oct 20, 2004)

You folks might want to read these two pages:
http://www.msoutlook.info/question/20
and
http://www.howto-outlook.com/faq/blockedattachments.htm
Outlook in and of itself blocks certain types of files; that could be some of the problem.


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## MaydayIT (Nov 26, 2007)

Hi all.

For those of you who mentioned AVG, you don't have to turn off the mail scanning entirely. Instead, just turn off the certification option. After reading that AVG was the cause, I did some digging, and this fixed it for me without losing the Email scanning feature!

Derek


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## slurpee55 (Oct 20, 2004)

I have AVG and have always just had it scan incoming messages - outgoing scanning just uses resources, and I scan my machine regularly and make sure it is virus-free.


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## MaydayIT (Nov 26, 2007)

It had the "certifying" set as a default, and until I installed Office 2007, it didn't have any adverse effects, so I left it. Without it, it still scans, and if if finds something it'll tell me anyway.


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