Sending HTML from Outlook to non-Outlook clients

[Jim Walsh]

This is a repost of this message. The first try got absolutely no responses.
Certainly, someone must know something about this.....

I have some correspondents that are using GroupWise as their e-mail client.

I have noted that they are usually unable to read e-mail that I send to them
that has been prepared and sent from Outlook using HTML format.

A search of this subject on the GroupWise support website turned up the
following information. I quote from their website:

<=============
The Novell GroupWise 6.5 Client and above determine that a document is to be
displayed in HTML by one of two methods.


1. The message has a first level attachment of Text.Html and the document
contains a tag like the following:

<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">

Note: The character set does not have to be "iso-8859-1" but it does have
to be a vaild character set. If text/html is specified without a character
set specification, the client will treat the document as plain text.

This tag tells the GroupWise client that the document is content Text/Html
and specifies a Character Set.

2. The message has a Mime.822 atachment that specifices the following:
Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1

Note: Again, the Character Set does not have to be "iso-8859-1" but it
does have to be a vaild character set. If text/html is specified without a
character set specification, the client will treat the document as plain
text.

The Novell GroupWise 6.5 and above client will only display a message in
HTML if both HTML and the Character Set are specified. HTML documents that
do not specify a character set could be a possible security violation. The
WC3 Standards Organization has some good information on the subject.

================>

When I look at the Internet header of HTML e-mail that I am sending from
Outlook, I observe the following:

Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----=_NextPart_000_007C_01C4D7CC.91512150"


It appears to me that this is the cause of the problem. Does anyone know of
a way to have Outlook include an Internet header that would be compatible
with GroupWise, and, apparently the Internet standard?

Thanks for your help.

Jim

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

multipart/alternative just tells you there are multiple parts, as there
should be in an HTML message. The details about the individual parts will be
farther down in the message source.

 

[Jim Walsh]

Sue,

Thanks for your quick reply to my posting. I was feeling kind of abandoned
after no responses to my first try.

Can you help with the basic problem, i.e. HTML messages prepared by Outlook
are no readable by GroupWise, and the GroupWise knowledgebase article seems
to imply that the problem is that Outlook is at fault.

From a recent message I sent, here is the rest of the header (or at least as
much as I can find using View...Options):

MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----=_NextPart_000_002A_01C4D215.67BB2280"
X-Mailer: Microsoft Office Outlook, Build 11.0.6353
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1441
Thread-Index: AcTSNC5KChgGowLjS8yJdhNJrf8+9wACvfEA


Jim

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

That's not enough to tell us anything. Without the full message source that
shows the different message parts, we really can't tell what's being sent. I
can't tell you how to get the full source from GroupWise.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of
Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

 

[Jim Walsh]

Sue,

I don't understand what you are asking.

The problem that I am describing is the inability of GroupWise clients to
properly read e-mails using HTML format that I produce using Microsoft
Outlook. The knowledgebase article on the GroupWise website indicates what
the GroupWise client is looking for in order to properly recognize the
message as HTML.

So, I have the original messages that constitute the problem. I would be
happy to forward one to you for your examination to see where the problem
is.

Thanks again for your help.

Jim

 

[Jim Walsh]

A follow-up to my own posting.

I just looked at a ZDNet Announcement e-mail that I got from ZDnet. It uses
HTML format.

When I View...Options, here is what it says:

Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Mailer-Version: 3.5.5 build 727
X-Mailer: Accucast
X-Accutrak: CNET_Networks_#[email protected]



It has the line that GroupWise is apparently looking for.

As far as I can see, mail generated by Outlook does not.

Thanks again for your help.

Jim

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

No, I can't see that. The portion of the message header that you've posted
indicates that there's more to it that you probably won't be able to see in
Outlook. If you send yourself a message to an account you can access with
Outlook Express, you will be able to see the full message source.

This for example is a fragment of an HTML message sent with Outlook 2003.
You can see that it includes a text/html part. This is what you want to be
looking at to try to see what you're actually sending.

Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0014_01C4DD40.3DF1D1C0"
X-Mailer: Microsoft Office Outlook, Build 11.0.6353
Thread-Index: AcTdaiT9AIQNj4L3Ryqu/lzDV/ZWeg==
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2180

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

------=_NextPart_000_0014_01C4DD40.3DF1D1C0
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

content


------=_NextPart_000_0014_01C4DD40.3DF1D1C0
Content-Type: text/html;
charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=3DContent-Type content=3D"text/html; =
charset=3Dus-ascii">

etc.

 

[Jim Walsh]

Sue,

As you suggested, I sent an HTML-formatted message to myself using MS
Outlook, and retrieved it using Outlook Express.Opened the received message,
and viewed the source. Here is what it shows. Note that I deleted the top
view lines that include address information. I don't think they impact the
discussion. I have delimited the message using lines of backslashes.

Note that the content of my message is two lines separated by a blank line:

Simple test of sending HTML mail

To be viewed in Outlook Express.


Does this explain why the GroupWise client doesn't recognize this as HTML,
according to the rules spelled out in my initial posting (reproduced at the
bottom of this message)?

Thanks again,
Jim

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

X-Mailer: Microsoft Office Outlook, Build 11.0.6353
X-MimeOLE: Microsoft Office Outlook, Build 11.0.6353
Subject: test
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 16:43:41 -0500
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0054_01C4DD45.219DAD00"
X-Mailer: Microsoft Office Outlook, Build 11.0.6353
Thread-Index: AcTdbvungxVA1qnoRFqWKN0Y/SanMg==
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1441

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

------=_NextPart_000_0054_01C4DD45.219DAD00
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Simple test of sending HTML mail

To be viewed in Outlook Express.


------=_NextPart_000_0054_01C4DD45.219DAD00
Content-Type: text/html;
charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>

<META content=3D"MSHTML 6.00.2800.1479" name=3DGENERATOR></HEAD>
<BODY>
<DIV><FONT face=3D"Comic Sans MS" size=3D2><SPAN =
class=3D765054321-08122004>Simple=20
test of sending HTML mail</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=3D"Comic Sans MS" size=3D2><SPAN=20
class=3D765054321-08122004></SPAN></FONT>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=3D"Comic Sans MS" size=3D2><SPAN =
class=3D765054321-08122004>To be=20
viewed in Outlook Express.</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=3D"Comic Sans MS" size=3D2><SPAN=20
class=3D765054321-08122004></SPAN></FONT>&nbsp;</DIV></BODY></HTML>

------=_NextPart_000_0054_01C4DD45.219DAD00--

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

 

[Brian Tillman]

A follow-up to my own posting.

I just looked at a ZDNet Announcement e-mail that I got from ZDnet.
It uses HTML format.

When I View...Options, here is what it says:

Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Mailer-Version: 3.5.5 build 727
X-Mailer: Accucast
X-Accutrak:
CNET_Networks_#[email protected]

In a multipart message, the HTML "Content-Type" header is not usually at the
beginning of the message, but preceeds the specific part, like this:

At the beginning:

MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/mixed;
boundary="----_=_NextPart_001_01C4DE07.23348B80"

Later down the message you'll see a Content-Type for each part, as in the
example below.

------_=_NextPart_001_01C4DE07.23348B80
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Here is the plain text part.

------_=_NextPart_001_01C4DE07.23348B80
Content-Type: plain/html; charset=ISO-8859-1

Here is the HTML part.

------_=_NextPart_001_01C4DE07.23348B80--

If your GroupWise client can't handle that, then it's not
standard-compliant.

 

[Jim Walsh]

Brian,

Thanks for your reply to my posting.

I understand what you are saying. As you can see in a 2nd posting I did
yesterday, I sent myself a message that I created in Outlook, and retrieved
it with Outlook Express, which allowed me to look at the whole content of
the message. I can see the various parts of the multipart message, etc.

I can see that when Outlook creates an HTML message it uses this multipart
structure, with the first part, containing my message identified as
Content-Type: text/plain, followed by another part that says Content-Type:
plain/html.

This seems to be confusing the GroupWise client used by some of my
correspondents. It does not interpret this as a valid HTML message.

I receive a variety of messages during the day that are in HTML format, e.g.
from ZDNET, New York Times, etc. About half of those senders do not use the
multipart structure. Instead, their first reference to ContentType says
text/HTML.

GroupWise tech support says (in the note I quoted in my original posting)
that they are requiring a format that is an Internet standard for HTML
messages. You indicate that the multipart structure used by Outlook is
Internet standard. Are these two conflicting standards? Is that documented
somewhere.

I would like to clear this up so that I can successfully send HTML-formatted
messages from Outlook to these GroupWise-using correspondents.

Thanks again for your help.

Jim

 

[Brian Tillman]

GroupWise tech support says (in the note I quoted in my original
posting) that they are requiring a format that is an Internet
standard for HTML messages. You indicate that the multipart structure
used by Outlook is Internet standard. Are these two conflicting
standards? Is that documented somewhere.

Not conflicting at all. One is for single part messages and one is for
multipart messages. Any standard-compliant mail client should recognize
both.

 

[Jim Walsh]

Final follow-up.

I went to the GroupWise newsgroups. They discuss the issue there.

There is a configuration option in GroupWise to set the Compose
and/or Read views to either HTML or plain text.

That solved the problem

Thanks to Brian and Sue for their help with this problem

Jim