# Outlook 2007 and inline quotation problem **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 26, 2007, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outlook-2007-and-inline-quotation-problem/401698 "2007-04-26T04:55:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2007, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outlook-2007-and-inline-quotation-problem/401698/1 "2007-04-26T04:55:37Z")
I recently installed the demo of Outlook 2007. I’m overall pleased with it but it has one quirk that might be a deal breaker for me. When I reply to certain long emails, I like to use the inline quotation method. You know what I mean - where you break the email into little chunks and reply to each part separately. Like we do with long threads here on the board. When I hit the reply button for emails I’ve recieved, the quoted part has a colored line running down the left hand side. In Outlook 2003, I’d hit the indent button and the line would clear away from the new stuff I’d add. In 2007, I can’t seem to find a way to clear the line on the side away from my new remarks. This makes it impossible to use inline replies since it doesn’t distinguish between the quote and the reply. There must be a way to fix this, right? Right?? thanks in advance for any help you might have for me! ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2007, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outlook-2007-and-inline-quotation-problem/401698/2 "2007-04-26T17:54:41Z")
a one time bump for the diurnal crowd. ---
**Author:** ![MrSquishy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9e5f3/32.png) [@MrSquishy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrSquishy)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2007, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outlook-2007-and-inline-quotation-problem/401698/3 "2007-04-26T18:14:21Z")
What a coincidence! I was just trying to figure out how to do this in Outlook 2002 yesterday. Thanks for solving that for me; I googled it but i didn’t find the indent button trick. However, we’re moving to Outlook 2007 next week! So after just finding out the solution to my problem, it looks like I’ll be screwed again. Bah! Here’s one thing I tried that didn’t work, but maybe it would in 2007? If you convert the message from HTML format to plain text, does it also convert the vertical line to ‘\>’ (or whatever character you use to distinguish quoted emails in plain text)? 2002 didn’t, it just got rid of the line. If this works in 2007, then maybe your solution would be to just use plain text (IMHO, the way email should be). ---
**Author:** ![ChordedZither](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9c0ed/32.png) [@ChordedZither](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChordedZither)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2007, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outlook-2007-and-inline-quotation-problem/401698/4 "2007-04-26T18:23:16Z")
I can’t speak directly to Outlook 2002 or 2007, but in Outlook 2003 you would do the following: From the Tools menu, select Options. On the Mail Format tab, set “Compose in this message format:” to “Plain text”. Then, on the Preferences tab, under E-mail, click on the button for E-Mail Options. You should see a section titled “On replies and forwards”. For “When replying to a message” and “When forwarding to a message”, select “Prefix each line of the original message”. For “Prefix each line with”, enter \> followed by a space (or whatever prefix string you prefer). ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2007, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outlook-2007-and-inline-quotation-problem/401698/5 "2007-04-26T20:52:57Z")
No Luck, so far. MrSquishy, when I choose to change the reply to plain text, it doesn’t put an \> marks where the line should be. It removes all sign of quoting. ChordedZither, that works if the message to which I’m replying is in plain text but if it’s in html, then my reply is html too and I get the dread blue line again. Switching it manually to plain text just loses all the quotes again, like I mentioned above. Curse you, html mail!! ---
**Author:** ![MrSquishy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9e5f3/32.png) [@MrSquishy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrSquishy)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2007, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outlook-2007-and-inline-quotation-problem/401698/6 "2007-04-26T21:15:07Z")
[QUOTE=Merneith] No Luck, so far. MrSquishy, when I choose to change the reply to plain text, it doesn’t put an \> marks where the line should be. It removes all sign of quoting. [/QUOTE] Yeah, that sucks. Same thing I got. [QUOTE=Merneith] ChordedZither, that works if the message to which I’m replying is in plain text but if it’s in html, then my reply is html too and I get the dread blue line again. Switching it manually to plain text just loses all the quotes again, like I mentioned above. [/QUOTE] Yep. I wish there was an option “Always reply with plain text, even if original mail is HTML”. And then it would use your plain text quoting options. I think that would be the fix. [QUOTE=Merneith] Curse you, html mail!! [/QUOTE] And Outlook too! ---
**Author:** ![ChordedZither](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9c0ed/32.png) [@ChordedZither](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChordedZither)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2007, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outlook-2007-and-inline-quotation-problem/401698/7 "2007-04-27T01:24:45Z")
Hmmm. Looking at my options, I see I have also checked “Read all standard mail in plain text” on the same E-mail Options dialog where you select “Prefix each line…” ---
**Author:** ![Hunter\_Hawk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/50afbb/32.png) [@Hunter\_Hawk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hunter_Hawk)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2007, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outlook-2007-and-inline-quotation-problem/401698/8 "2007-04-27T04:04:30Z")
There’s definitely a way to do this–I know this because I don’t get change bars when I do inline replies. Unfortunately, I have no idea what the actual setting is to control this. Are you using Word as your editor? I wonder whether that might play a role. ---
**Author:** ![DWMarch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dwmarch/32/1010_2.png) [@DWMarch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DWMarch)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2007, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outlook-2007-and-inline-quotation-problem/401698/9 "2007-04-27T04:17:25Z")
I have Outlook 2007. It looks like the option you want is under Options, Email Options. There’s a section for “On replies and forwards” that you can set to prefix each line of the original message. A box lets you choose what kind of character to use for prefixing and the default is \>. Hope that works. Office 2007 has a million different autoformatting options that might intefere. ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2007, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outlook-2007-and-inline-quotation-problem/401698/10 "2007-04-27T04:33:41Z")
DWMarch, unfortunately, the blue line I’m griping about is what that prefix character turns into when you’re dealing with an html message instead of a text message format. Hunter Hawk, I have not tried setting Word as the editor. Is that an option in 2007? I’ll give it a whirl. ---
**Author:** ![Hunter\_Hawk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/50afbb/32.png) [@Hunter\_Hawk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hunter_Hawk)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2007, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outlook-2007-and-inline-quotation-problem/401698/11 "2007-04-27T04:46:44Z")
[QUOTE=Merneith] Hunter Hawk, I have not tried setting Word as the editor. Is that an option in 2007? [/QUOTE] Damfino. I usually try to avoid using Word as the editor, Luddite that I am. I was wondering whether you had set it as the editor and maybe it was turning on “Track Changes” or something. An Outlook expert I am not. ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2007, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outlook-2007-and-inline-quotation-problem/401698/12 "2007-04-27T16:12:11Z")
Hm. I can’t seem to find a way to use Word as an editor in Office 2007. I think they disabled that since they’ve made a whole bunch of word functionality native to outlook in this version.