Using Word 03 as an editor for Outlook

P

Paul B

I've been on a quest to see if I can get Outlook to do what I
want. I'm using Word 03 as a Rich Text editor for Outlook.

First of all, I'm appalled that Word forces the user to top post.
I set the quoteback to be prefixed with "> "; fine. But then
navigating to the bottom of the page, there was no way to escape
the quoteback delimiter. Everything I wrote was treated as quote.
Amazing.

Next, the amount of bloat is unacceptable. I see that details of
all the paragraph styles in my normal.dot are included in each
mail Word sends out; other unnecessary <head> data is sent as
well.

I'd also like to get rid of the From:, Sent:, To:, Subject:
header info that's included at the top of the quoteback.

These problems exist whether I choose Rich Text or HTML.

Can any of these be addressed? Frankly, I'm not too hopeful.

Thanks much,
p.
 
G

Graham Mayor

You want to bottom post *and* use html? Why?

There are as many arguments for or against top posting, but as someone who
uses NNTP forums as much as me, I can assure you that bottom posting is not
only irritating, but frankly I rarely bother to dig to find out what the
question is. Top posting puts the relevant stuff at the top where it should
be.

As a large percentage of potential recipients will have their mail readers
set to display only plain text, message formats other than plain text tend
to be merely self indulgent wastes of bandwidth.

As for the problem in hand, if you switch off the automatic insertion of
your signature and create a macro (the macro recorder will do this) to take
the cursor to the end of the message, insert the signature then move the
cursor to the space between quoted message and cursor, running that macro
should fulfil most of your ambitions.


--
<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com

<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
 
P

Pat Garard

G'Day Paul,

In addition to what Graham has said, be aware that, for e-mail in general,
what goes out over the Internet is Plain Text or HTML.

Rich Text Format is a Microsoft proprietary format and, in e-mail, survives
only when passing through Exchange Server to a recipient in the SAME
organisation.

If it leaves the organisation, it is sent as HTML.
 
P

Paul B

You want to bottom post *and* use html? Why?

There are as many arguments for or against top posting, but as someone who
uses NNTP forums as much as me, I can assure you that bottom posting is not
only irritating, but frankly I rarely bother to dig to find out what the
question is. Top posting puts the relevant stuff at the top where it should
be.
Click to expand...

I generally detest top posting, but I'm not going to get into the
argument here; it's been done and overdone already.
As a large percentage of potential recipients will have their mail readers
set to display only plain text, message formats other than plain text tend
to be merely self indulgent wastes of bandwidth.
Click to expand...

Perhaps. But the expressiveness of html is a real boon at times.
As for the problem in hand, if you switch off the automatic insertion of
your signature and create a macro (the macro recorder will do this) to take
the cursor to the end of the message, insert the signature then move the
cursor to the space between quoted message and cursor, running that macro
should fulfil most of your ambitions.
Click to expand...

In doing so, can the macro break the quote span (I think it is)?
Even if I Ctrl-End, I can't add unquoted text. Therein lies my
problem. New linefeeds are treated as quotes.

My original text was truncated because it fell beneath your sig
delimiter, but my other objection was the html bloat that Word
spews into each document. I doubt that there's a correction for
that. I would hope to be wrong on that, but I think for now I'm
going to abandon the Outlook-Word idea, and simply use Word
independently with Thunderbird when I need an advanced editor. I
think copying/pasting over won't take all the bloat.

Thanks,
p.
 
P

Paul B

G'Day Paul,

In addition to what Graham has said, be aware that, for e-mail in general,
what goes out over the Internet is Plain Text or HTML.

Rich Text Format is a Microsoft proprietary format and, in e-mail, survives
only when passing through Exchange Server to a recipient in the SAME
organisation.

If it leaves the organisation, it is sent as HTML.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Pat. Very good point. Duly noted.

p.
 

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