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Question

Text Wrapping in Outlook for Mac 2011

Applies To: Office for Mac | Office for Mac 2011 | Outlook for Mac
Hi!  My Outlook 2011 for Mac refuses to wrap text when I'm writing emails.  I looked online, and on this site, but couldn't find any solutions.  Manually adding line breaks is a mess, so does any one know of a way to fix this?  I'm sure there's just some setting I'm missing. 

Thanks!
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ChristinaBianco

ChristinaBianco

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Outlook for Mac introduces format=flowed formatting for plain text messages. This is similar to HTML, which by nature wraps only when it reaches the right edge of the window.

Format=flowed means that plain text messages are no longer wrapped around the 80th character. This makes reading messages much cleaner on different size devices like iPhones or iPads. Messages are rewrapped automatically by the receiving application rather than the sending application.

This feature cannot be turned off.

Hope this helps!

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Talking Moose

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William M. Smith
http://www.officeformachelp.com
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That helps a lot, thank you so much!
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ChristinaBianco

ChristinaBianco

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I have Outlook for Mac 2011 (14.1.2) and I don't think format=flowed is working.

When I send plain text emails from Outlook for Mac 2011 they are truncated at around 78 chars - Outlook for Windows, Mail.app for Mac, and Yahoo Mail all display the mail as 78-character lines.

Is there some optional install or other patch/config option I'm missing?

Thanks!
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svec

svec

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In my opinion the format=flowed implementation is not intuitive and could stand some improvement.

You'll know it's working because exchanges back and forth that include replies and replies to replies are indented with a bar to the left. As the quoting increases the text is rewrapping without awkward breaks.

For some reason, though, Outlook likes to display saved plain text messages (such as those you've sent already) as if they were wrapped at 80 characters per line. I too expect something similar to HTML where lines fill completely from left to right. I don't believe this is a bug but rather by design. No idea why though.

Please be sure to let Microsoft know how you'd like to see this feature implemented in future versions by using the Help --> Send Feedback mechanism in any Office application.

Hope this helps! 
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Talking Moose

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William M. Smith
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I totally agree. the automatic line breaking can only be a questionable design decision. I cannot count the amount of time it has taken me to format my email messages by hand, only to find my messages with a completely messy format on my recipient's email clients...
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Brunsey

Brunsey

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I suspect the problem is not merely an issue of what "Outlook likes to display". It seems to run deeper.

For instance, when you copy the text of a (sent) plain-text message to another application, say Word, then there is a paragraph mark at the end of each line. And when you copy the text of a (sent) plain-text message into a new message, then add a word or two so that a line contains more than 80 characters, then this line is split in two (when the new message is being sent) with the first line containing max. 80 characters and the second line containing the rest, even if that is only a single word! This is extremely annoying.

It looks as if "format=flowed" is not implemented at all. Or the expression "format=flowed" has some technical meaning totally unrelated to what people want when they don't want that line breaks get automatically inserted after 80 characters or so: they want plain-text messages to be handled the way they are in Apple's Mail.app.
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Etaoin Shrdlu

Etaoin Shrdlu

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The more I think about this issue, the less I believe that the way Outlook handles plain text is a feature (as opposed to a bug or simply thoughtless programming). The reason is this:

Outlook already inserts hard line breaks If you do as little as save a message in plain text as a draft and close the message window. Check it: reopen the saved draft, and you will find that lines stop at max. 80 characters. Modify your draft by adding or deleting text, save again, and Outlook produces line breaks that are, in most instances, totally unacceptable.

It is thus almost impossible to work productively and efficiently with a previously saved plain-text draft. But what's the point of saving a message as a draft if not, by default, to modify it later on?Outlook essentially requires to manually replace each line break with a space or using some third party utility that does something to that effect.

Frankly, such "workarounds" may be acceptable for inexpensive software, but not for a programme which a premium price is asked for and which is subject to the most stringent licensing regulations .
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Etaoin Shrdlu

Etaoin Shrdlu

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