UTF-8 and Microsoft Outlook

[Amdious]

Hello, I'm trying to get my UTF-8 encoded vCard working with Microsoft
Outlook and can't. It's a Japanese vCard and Outlook keeps trying to convert
in to the ANSI code page. In this case I have Shift_JIS installed on the
system. I want it to use the UTF-8 encoding. If I save the file with the ANSI
encoding, Outlook loads the file just fine. How can I get it to use UTF-8?

I have the same problem with vCalendar as well. If it's a UTF-8 encoded .vcs
it doesn't import properly. It keeps treating it as ANSI and tries to find
the associated Shift_JIS character. I load up the .vcs file in Thunderbird's
Lightning add-on with VCS support and the request comes in just fine. Please
see the examples I'm using. I grabbed them off a site just for an example.

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:1.0
X-PALM:4.0
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART:20020220T130000
DTEND:20020220T140000
SUMMARY:テト
DESCRIPTION:コント
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR

BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:2.1
N;CHARSET=SHIFT_JIS:テト;太;;;
FN;CHARSET=SHIFT_JIS:テト 太
SOUND;X-IRMC-N;CHARSET=SHIFT_JIS:ﾃﾄ;ﾛｳ;;;
TEL;PREF;CELL;WORK:11111111111
TEL;CELL:11111111111
TEL;WORK;VOICE:11111111111
EMAIL;CELL:[email protected]
EMAIL;INTERNET;WORK:[email protected]
ORG;CHARSET=SHIFT_JIS:社å
END:VCARD

Yes, I do realize that I'm specifying CHARSET=SHIFT_JIS in the vCard
structure, but that doesn't seem to matter. If I take it out then it still
uses SHIFT_JIS and if I specify CHARSET=UTF-8, Outlook does not seem to honor
it. Anyone know if it's a known issue from Microsoft? I just need some
confirmation or someone to point out what keyword I'm missing. UTF-8 seems to
work just fine for regular messages, but not for vCards and vCalendars.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Pat Willener]

Two questions
- do you run Outlook in Unicode Mode?
- have you tried JIS (ISO-2022-JP) instead of Shift_JIS?

 

[Amdious]

Yup, I run in Unicode Mode and validated that fact by checking the properties
of the mailbox and then selecting Advanced. I also tried using the
ISO-2022-JP CHARSET as follows:

BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:2.1
N;LANGUAGE=JP;CHARSET=ISO-2022-JP:テト;太;;;
FN;LANGUAGE=JP;CHARSET=ISO-2022-JP:テト 太
SOUND;X-IRMC-N;CHARSET=ISO-2022-JP:ﾃﾄ;ﾛｳ;;;
TEL;PREF;CELL;WORK:11111111111
TEL;CELL:111111111111
TEL;WORK;VOICE:111111111111
EMAIL;CELL:[email protected]
EMAIL;INTERNET;WORK:[email protected]
ORG;LANGUAGE=JP;CHARSET=ISO-2022-JP:社å
END:VCARD

And that doesn't seem to work both with and without the LANGUAGE=JP part. I
also tried CHARSET=ISO2022-JP because another site said to do so and that
didn't work either. It's like it just ignores the CHARSET property and always
forces it to use the ANSI codepages and since I have Shift_JIS installed on
the system it always tries to decode as Shift_JIS. The funny part is that I
can force regular messages to use UTF-8 encoding using View > Encoding >
UTF-8. But there's no such menu option for the Contact or Calendar view that
I can find. Give it a go in your env if you can and see if you can get it
looking good. If you can then that would be great cause then I know I have
something messed up on my system. I run it with Win2003 server and WinXP and
add the regional settings. Doesn't seem to matter if it's a English or
Japanese OS as long as I install the proper settings. Thanks again in advance.