formatting toolbar greyed out

[Guest]

when i reply to an email, the formatting toolbar (bold, underline, etc) is
greyed out. i thought this had to do with the how i view the email (html,
plain, rtf), but am having trouble getting this to work. i am using xp pro,
outlook 2003. what to change and where to do it?

thank you

eddie a

 

[Guest]

hi vicky, my current setting in tools, options, mail format is: compose in
"html" .. that is especially why i don't understand why greyed out. any
other options?
thanks eddie

 

[Guest]

Yes, If you have the formatting set to plain text, that would cause it to be
grayed out.

Also, if this is happening on all e-mails you may want to change your
formatting under OPTIONS
From the main Outlook window - TOOLS > OPTIONS > MAIL FORMAT then under
message format chose the Compose in this message format and click anything
but "plain tezt"

 

[Guest]

Eddie, is it happening on only one message or all messages you try to reply to.

 

[Guest]

Is this happening on only one e-mail or on all replys? If the original
sender sent the message in plain text, it will come through as plain text.
You can change it in the reply under FORMAT and then select either HTML or
Rich Text

 

[Guest]

it is happening, it seems, on all emails that i reply to (maybe everyone who
writes me uses plain text?). BUY the good news is that changing to html or
rich text in the format of the reply works. so thanks very much. is there
any way to have this be automatically set so i don't have to do it each time
(other than the first suggestion which is supposed to do that?)

eddie

 

[Brian Tillman]

it is happening, it seems, on all emails that i reply to (maybe
everyone who writes me uses plain text?). BUY the good news is that
changing to html or rich text in the format of the reply works. so
thanks very much. is there any way to have this be automatically set
so i don't have to do it each time (other than the first suggestion
which is supposed to do that?)

Outlook will always reply using the format of the original message. If you
receive a Rich Text or HTML message, a reply to that will be in that same
format. The only exception to this is if you have the "Read all standard
mail in plain text" option selected (Tools>Options>Email Options).

 

[SgtRich]

it is happening, it seems, on all emails that i reply to (maybe everyone who
writes me uses plain text?).
Correct.

BUY the good news is that changing to html or
rich text in the format of the reply works. so thanks very much. is there
any way to have this be automatically set so i don't have to do it each time

Luckily, no. When a person sends a message to you in plain text, chances are
that they do not want to receive HTML replies.