M
Michael E. Clark
This feature almost throws me into a rage. I'll admit it's not a bad
idea -- trying to make broken email messages look nicer.
What really gets me going is the fact that it seems Microsoft is
trying to _discourage_ people from using text-only emails by enabling
this questionable "feature" by _default_.
As an advocate of plain-text I find this default behavior highly
offensive.
I cannot count the number of times I've written a nice, formatted
plain-text email to a colleague through Outlook only to have it
horribly _munged_ on their end because of this awful feature which is
enabled by default.
And _no_ I will _not_ go around and tell all my colleagues and friends
to modify their Outlook settings at work and at home to accommodate my
simple plain-text emails. Yes I know they can click the little yellow
bar. But do they know about this feature? No, they don't. They open
and read it "as-is." I've watched.
I'm angry. It makes my emails look slipshod and reflects poorly on
me. Hmmm... what shall I do to avoid this? Switch to HTML based
email because Outlook so helpfully ruins my plain-text ones?
Maybe Microsoft was trying to be helpful. But I cannot shake the
feeling that they are exerting pressure on people to move away from
plain-text. In my mind, that is unacceptable behavior. And so is
ruining my emails.
I use Outlook 2002 and I don't know if the feature's been turned off
by default as it should be in the latest versions of Office. I doubt
it has been, but my apologies for this flame if it has.
However, MICROSOFT, if you have _not_ disabled this feature in your
latest version, please kindly do so in the next patch or release and
stop this subtle yet powerful coercion of email formatting away from
plain-text. It is not your place to do so.
In other words, stop F'ING UP my emails!
idea -- trying to make broken email messages look nicer.
What really gets me going is the fact that it seems Microsoft is
trying to _discourage_ people from using text-only emails by enabling
this questionable "feature" by _default_.
As an advocate of plain-text I find this default behavior highly
offensive.
I cannot count the number of times I've written a nice, formatted
plain-text email to a colleague through Outlook only to have it
horribly _munged_ on their end because of this awful feature which is
enabled by default.
And _no_ I will _not_ go around and tell all my colleagues and friends
to modify their Outlook settings at work and at home to accommodate my
simple plain-text emails. Yes I know they can click the little yellow
bar. But do they know about this feature? No, they don't. They open
and read it "as-is." I've watched.
I'm angry. It makes my emails look slipshod and reflects poorly on
me. Hmmm... what shall I do to avoid this? Switch to HTML based
email because Outlook so helpfully ruins my plain-text ones?
Maybe Microsoft was trying to be helpful. But I cannot shake the
feeling that they are exerting pressure on people to move away from
plain-text. In my mind, that is unacceptable behavior. And so is
ruining my emails.
I use Outlook 2002 and I don't know if the feature's been turned off
by default as it should be in the latest versions of Office. I doubt
it has been, but my apologies for this flame if it has.
However, MICROSOFT, if you have _not_ disabled this feature in your
latest version, please kindly do so in the next patch or release and
stop this subtle yet powerful coercion of email formatting away from
plain-text. It is not your place to do so.
In other words, stop F'ING UP my emails!