August 30, 2008

Forward/Reply Formatting

Have you ever noticed how forwarded e-mails are so different from one person to the next? I mean, Sue forwards you a message where the original text has a ">" at the beginning of each line, while Jeff forwards you something and the original e-mail comes as an attachment.

Whatever propecia no prescription configuration you've seen or preferred, the big question is: What does MS Outlook do with your forward and reply e-mails? Now, a good question for you is: Do you like the configuration you have? If you said no, have you ever looked for the options to change it?

Well, if you've ever found yourself looking to control forward and reply formatting, this is the tip for you!

In Outlook, you're looking for the Tools menu, Options choice.

When the Options window opens, I found the E-mail Options button under the Preferences tab in newer versions of Outlook, including 2007.

Click on the E-mail Options button.

You're now looking for the "On replies and forwards" section.

You'll then see two categories: "When replying to a message" and "When forwarding a message."

Each of those have a drop down list of choices and a small preview of what the choice does to an e-mail. (The preview will change when a different choice is selected from the list).

As you can see, the options are pretty self-explanatory, so just choose what makes the most sense to you.

If you choose "Prefix each line of the original message," the "Prefix each line with" field will become active so that you can determine what character Outlook should use.

And last, but not least, at the bottom of the section, there's a checkbox that, when selected, will mark any comments you place within the body of the original e-mail (instead of just above it like the usual reply or forward) with the text you indicate.

For example, after I entered "April:" into the "Mark my comments with" field and then forwarded an e-mail, the text I inserted into the body of the original message was marked so that it's easier to find: