Version of Outlook? You have an automatic formatting rule set on the view.
You can either remove the rule or reset the view to fix it.
http://www.outlook-tips.net/beginner/autoformat.htm
http://www.outlook-tips.net/beginner/resetview.htm
--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Outlook Tips:
http://www.outlook-tips.net/
Outlook & Exchange Solutions Center:
http://www.slipstick.com
Outlook Tips by email:
dailytips-subscribe-(E-Mail Removed)
EMO - a weekly newsletter about Outlook and Exchange:
EMO-NEWSLETTER-SUBSCRIBE-(E-Mail Removed)
You can access this newsgroup by visiting
http://www.microsoft.com/office/comm...s/default.mspx or point your
newsreader to msnews.microsoft.com.
"torxhead" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news

25ED5C8-5645-4F24-8909-(E-Mail Removed)...
> I, too, would like to know how this is done. I regularly receive messages
> where the Inbox listing is in color and I'd like to defeat it. Most
> annoying
> are spam messages which appear in gray, so that even though they are bold
> because they're unread, they APPEAR to be read because, being gray, the
> bolding is not obvious. I also receive certain reputable messages (from
> Fidelity Investments, e.g.) which appear in a very unpleasant and
> distracting
> magenta. I don't seem to have any rules established to color messages
> from
> certain senders, so what's going on? I first noticed this about a year
> ago
> on my office PC and have been unable to find any source to help me defeat
> this practice.
>
> Thanks for any help you can offer.