Cyrillic font in From and Subject lines

[Steve Vincent]

I recently detached my copy of Outlook 2003 from the Exchange server I
formerly used and built a new profile to connect to an IMAP service. Whereas
messages from Russian colleagues had arrived correctly formatted in all
respects on the Exchange server, Outlook can no longer present Cyrillic
fonts in the subject line or the From line. Nor can I switch to the Russian
font when I'm drafting new messages.

If I look at incoming Russian messages on myISP's web interface, the subject
line and the from line are presented properly. Once they arrive in Outlook,
however, they get converted to question marks or little empty boxes.

I'm using Outlook 2003 on Windows XP and I have Russian language support
installed on the o/s. I thought to upgrade to Outlook 2007 but a web search
on "outlook cyrillic subject" suggests that people who had the problem I
describe and upgraded to Outlook 2007 still had the same problem.

Surely somebody has figured out the solution, but I can't find it. Help!

-Steve Vincent
steve at canyontech dotcom

 

[Steve Vincent]

I've done a little more research. I think the problem is that I cannot
create a unicode .pst file for an IMAP account. If I were to upgrade to
Outlook 2007 would I be able to do this? Is there a workaround for Outlook
2003?

 

[Pat Willener]

Why do you think that you cannot create a Unicode PST file? This is
really the key; you need to run Outlook in Unicode Mode in order to
support multibyte characters in the Subject (and To, Cc, From) line.

 

[Steve Vincent]

I can't remember where on the Microsoft Office site I found confirmation
that Outlook 2003 IMAP folders don't support unicode, but they don't. If you
add a registry key to force Outlook to always create Unicode files, it is
unable to add an IMAP account, claiming that you don't have permission to
create the necessary folder.

I solved the problem by upgrading to Outlook 2007 and re-creating the IMAP
account. The new .PST folder created by Outlook 2007 includes full unicode
support.

Thanks, Pat, for taking time to think about my problem.

Best regards,
Steve

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

Why do you think that you cannot create a Unicode PST file? This is really
the key; you need to run Outlook in Unicode Mode in order to support
multibyte characters in the Subject (and To, Cc, From) line.

Because Outlook 2003 and earlier only use ANSI PSTs for IMAP accounts. You
cannot create a Unicode PST for IMAP accounts until Outlook 2007.

 

[Pat Willener]

Because Outlook 2003 and earlier only use ANSI PSTs for IMAP accounts. You
cannot create a Unicode PST for IMAP accounts until Outlook 2007.

Thanks for the explanation, Brian - I didn't know that.