Outlook 2000 in a Nutshell

Three Ways to Send Email

Outlook supports three message formats for sending email: HTML, Microsoft Outlook Rich Text Format (MS-RTF), and Plain Text. The global configuration for this setting is located under Tools → Options → Mail Format. This selection determines the default format used (regardless of editor choice) when a new message is created. Replies or forwards are sent in the same format in which the message was received.

Note

For an explanation of how to change the format used when replying or forwarding a message, see the topic Section 5.5.3 under Section 5.5 later in this chapter.

Generally speaking:

• HTML is the lingua franca of Internet communications. It offers limited control of message format (font, color, style, etc.) and is supported by most mainstream email clients, which means that compatibility is no longer a major issue. But depending on your needs, this may not be the most efficient and productive format to use. Said another way, it’s easy to get caught up in messing with fonts, colors, and “pretty” backgrounds when the task at hand is to get the message out the door and get back to work. If you are truly using the capabilities of HTML to enhance communications, this is a good choice. In addition, some of Outlook’s collaboration features (for example, Task requests and Meeting requests) require HTML or MS-RTF to work properly.

• Microsoft introduced MS-RTF in the latter part of the 1980s as an interchange format between operating systems and platforms (including ...