# MS Outlook Message Reply Formating **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 19, 2012, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-outlook-message-reply-formating/628672 "2012-07-19T00:30:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2012, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-outlook-message-reply-formating/628672/1 "2012-07-19T00:30:25Z")
MS Outlook, all on its own, decided to change how it formats messages I’m replying to. I prefer the variant where the original message… \> Is indented with a “\>” character \> like this Rather than the variant where the original message | Is auto-formatted with a bright blue bar | at the left, which can’t be adjusted and which | can’t be quoted and which can’t be removed. It USED to work the way I wanted, but it stopped, all by its damn self, and I can’t get it to go back again. I went into Options and TOLD it to use “Plain Text” and to quote original messages with the “\>” prefix. But it effing well won’t. I’m so mad I could just – um – wait, this isn’t the Pit. So… Is there a product I can switch to? A nice email reader, with decent archiving, perhaps with a nice calendar/scheduler, much like Outlook…but which a human being can actually use without his blood pressure shooting up like Popeye’s muskles after a can of spinnitch? I don’t want to be one of those people who hate Microsoft, but, goddamit, they are not making this easy for me!