HTML E-mail problerms

[MS]

As I recently wrote in another post, I had used Outlook Express for my
e-mail for years. Earlier this year, I started to use Outlook as a PIM, and
finally I tried using it for e-mail also, only using OE for newsgroup
writing. Some of the e-mail features of Outlook (currently using 2002) I
like far better than OE.

However, in some areas, OE is a better e-mail program than Outlook,
surprising since it is a free program, and Outlook is not. Since the same
company makes them, I wondered why Outlook has not improved in the areas in
which OE is superior.

I have not yet tried Outlook 2003, and am thinking of upgrading. Has it
improved at all in HTML e-mail implementation (one of the areas in which OE6
is far superior to Outlook XP)?

And no, I do not usually use HTML e-mail, for normal daily e-mail. But there
are cases where it can be nice to use, and I wonder why it is so much more
clumsy and difficult in OL than OE?

For instance, I just wasted too much time in trying to embed a sound in an
HTML e-mail in Outlook. No, I don't do that often. But for special messages,
such as a birthday card, it can be nice. If I had thought of it earlier, I
would have just written the message in OE, in which that is easy.
(Format-background-sound). But I wrote the message in Outlook, complete with
pictures, formatting, etc., then couldn't do the sound.

I tried different ways to put it in. I started a new message in OE, put in
the background music I wanted, clicked on the "Source" tab (why doesn't
Outlook have those tabs for HTML-formatted messages?), and copied the tag
for embedding the sound to the clipboard. Went back to the Outlook message,
and tried to get the HTML code, and paste the sound tag in. Well, although
the Source tab isn't there, I finally figured out you can right-click on the
message and choose "View Source". However, I did that, pasted in the sound
tag, clicked "Save" (in Notepad, where the Source code was shown) and that
didn't do anything to the Outlook message. Is there any way to edit the
source code of an HTML e-mail in Outlook, add tags, etc?

I then copied the whole HTML Outlook message to the clipboard, and pasted it
into a new OE message, where I could add the sound. But some of the text
formatting, as well as all the pictures, were lost in the OE message. I
didn't want to re-do them.

I finally just sent the message without the sound. I wasted much too much
time on it as it was, for something not that important, trying to figure out
how to do it.

I don't understand, however, why Microsoft, cannot put the knowledge and
technology it has in OE regarding HTML-formatted messages into Outlook.

Has it improved in Outlook 2003?

 

[Roady]

Microsoft Office Outlook is targetted to be more of a business application
than a home user application like Outlook Express. Therefore the option of
adding sound to a message isn't that obvious in Outlook but it is still
there.

When you set Word as your e-mail editor (Tools-> Options-> tab Mail Format)
in a new mail choose View-> Toolbars-> Web Tools and press on the sound icon
and browse to the file you would like to add.

When you already have some html code and content in a text-file (txt, html,
etc) you can choose Insert-> Attachment-> and press the little downarrow on
the Insert button to choose Insert as text and your HTML-page will be
inserted.
--
Roady
www.sparnaaij.net
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[MS]

Microsoft Office Outlook is targetted to be more of a business application
than a home user application like Outlook Express. Therefore the option of
adding sound to a message isn't that obvious in Outlook but it is still
there.

Yes, but people using an e-mail program in a business will likely use the
same program at home. If Microsoft has the knowledge to put better HTML
e-mail capabilities in a free program like OE, why don't they put those
capabilities in Outlook e-mail? I really don't understand it. Yes, most
people aren't going to put sounds in e-mail, etc. on a frequent basis, but
might like to occasionally, even if they are a business user, and one would
think that should be made as simple as possible to use.

I know some businesses send out HTML e-mail--ads, announcements, etc. Why
aren't the features there to make that simpler, for instance the source tab
at the bottom, like in OE?

Well, who can figure out Microsoft?

Anyhow--any improvements at all along those lines in version 2003?

 

[TRB]

No, Outlook 2003 is much worse in those regards. We use it for our business
and you are right, we use it at home too. We are returning the product
under the 30 day money back program. I will never understand why Microsoft
would block controls/features from the systems administrator/owner, but they
have done that with Outlook 2003.

It is disappointing too, as there are some very nice features in Outlook
2003, but Microsoft's blocking completely ruined the product as far as we
are concerned.

Don't buy it, as it is way too much money for something that is so very
limited.

TRB