P
Patrick Philippot
Hi,
If you have problems when receiving plain text, UTF-8 encoded emails
(accented and special characters not displayed or replaced with garbage),
you're not alone. Here is the workaround.
Like many other users, my PST file has a long history and was still in the
old Outlook 9x format. Switching to the new Unicode format fixes the
problem. This will not have any effect on the messages that you have already
received, though. Only the new messages will be displayed properly. for teh
old messages, you still have to :
- Open the message (not just in the preview window, Open it)
- Change the encoding to anything different from UTF-8 (Other actions |
Encoding)
- Switch back to the UTF-8 encoding
How do I switch to the new Unicode format, you ask. Outlook doesn't provide
any mean of doing this easily and directly. DO NOT follow the isntructions
provided here http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HP010383511033.aspx
by Microsoft. This simply doesn't work.
You have three choices:
Solution #1
Wait until MS fixes the problem. Since the problem has been reported since a
long time, I'm not sure that you'll see a fix quickly. Once a bug has lasted
for over one or two years, I name it a "persistent bug". You have almost no
chance to see it fixed one day.
Solution #2 (with help of Patrick Schmid and Sue Mosher)
- MAKE A BACKUP OF ALL YOUR CURRENT PST FILES. DO IT, PLEASE.
- Create a new Unicode PST file from the Mail Setup | Data Files dialog
- When both files are open, go into File | Archive.
- Select the root for your current ANSI PST folder and set the date to today
or tomorrow.
- Check the Include items option at teh bottom of teh dialog box and browse
to the Unicode PST.
- Let Outlook archive all items from the ANSI PST to the Unicode PST (note
that this will empty your current ANSI PST file).
- Make the new PST file your default PST.
Solution #3
There is a utility named UpStart that will do the job in a much easier way
(http://www.maclean.com/upstart/). It is not free and there's no trial
version but it is able to easily make modifications to the format and the
compression options of your existing PST files.
Warning: this utility obviously works fine on most systems but it didn't on
mine. I first had a crash (which was quickly fixed by the author) and then
I had some problems with my PST files once translated to Unicode. However,
this could be caused by a tool that I'm using , so I'm probably a special
case. The author kindly reimbursed the license anyway, so there's no risk
(if you backup your PST files first - the software itself does a backup of
the PST files before converting them but you should make your own backups).
Good luck.
If you have problems when receiving plain text, UTF-8 encoded emails
(accented and special characters not displayed or replaced with garbage),
you're not alone. Here is the workaround.
Like many other users, my PST file has a long history and was still in the
old Outlook 9x format. Switching to the new Unicode format fixes the
problem. This will not have any effect on the messages that you have already
received, though. Only the new messages will be displayed properly. for teh
old messages, you still have to :
- Open the message (not just in the preview window, Open it)
- Change the encoding to anything different from UTF-8 (Other actions |
Encoding)
- Switch back to the UTF-8 encoding
How do I switch to the new Unicode format, you ask. Outlook doesn't provide
any mean of doing this easily and directly. DO NOT follow the isntructions
provided here http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HP010383511033.aspx
by Microsoft. This simply doesn't work.
You have three choices:
Solution #1
Wait until MS fixes the problem. Since the problem has been reported since a
long time, I'm not sure that you'll see a fix quickly. Once a bug has lasted
for over one or two years, I name it a "persistent bug". You have almost no
chance to see it fixed one day.
Solution #2 (with help of Patrick Schmid and Sue Mosher)
- MAKE A BACKUP OF ALL YOUR CURRENT PST FILES. DO IT, PLEASE.
- Create a new Unicode PST file from the Mail Setup | Data Files dialog
- When both files are open, go into File | Archive.
- Select the root for your current ANSI PST folder and set the date to today
or tomorrow.
- Check the Include items option at teh bottom of teh dialog box and browse
to the Unicode PST.
- Let Outlook archive all items from the ANSI PST to the Unicode PST (note
that this will empty your current ANSI PST file).
- Make the new PST file your default PST.
Solution #3
There is a utility named UpStart that will do the job in a much easier way
(http://www.maclean.com/upstart/). It is not free and there's no trial
version but it is able to easily make modifications to the format and the
compression options of your existing PST files.
Warning: this utility obviously works fine on most systems but it didn't on
mine. I first had a crash (which was quickly fixed by the author) and then
I had some problems with my PST files once translated to Unicode. However,
this could be caused by a tool that I'm using , so I'm probably a special
case. The author kindly reimbursed the license anyway, so there's no risk
(if you backup your PST files first - the software itself does a backup of
the PST files before converting them but you should make your own backups).
Good luck.