OL2000: (IMO) Cyrillic characters changed to Question Marks (198867)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Outlook 2000
This article was previously published under Q198867


NOTE: These procedures only apply if you have installed Outlook with the Internet Mail Only option. To determine your installation type, click About Microsoft Outlook on the Help menu. If you have the Internet Mail Only option installed, you see "Internet Mail Only".

For information about the differences between Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Outlook Express e-mail clients, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

257824 OL2000: Differences Between Outlook and Outlook Express

SYMPTOMS

Recipients of messages composed using the Cyrillic font see question marks.

CAUSE

The message was sent with plain text set as the default mail format.

MORE INFORMATION

In order to be able to send and receive messages using the Cyrillic character set, the message needs to be in Rich Text Format (RTF). If at any point the Rich Text formatting is lost, the Cyrillic content may be converted to question marks, or to garbled characters. The steps in this article are designed to help you troubleshoot problems with sending messages using the Cyrillic font.

In order to determine how to resolve this issue, you will first need to discover where the Rich-Text formatting is being lost.

  • Verify that Plain Text is not set as the Default mail format.
    1. On the Tools menu, click Options.
    2. On the Mail Format tab, click to select HTML or Microsoft Outlook Rich Text.
    3. Click Apply, and click OK.
  • Verify that you are not using Plain Text as the default e-mail format for the recipient.
To select the RTF sending option for Contacts, follow these steps:

  1. Select your Contacts folder.
  2. Open the contact in a card view by double-clicking on the card heading.
  3. Click to clear the Send Using Plain Text option.
  4. Click Save, and then click Close.
For more information on sending messages in Rich Text Format, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

ARTICLE-ID: 197423
TITLE : OL2000: How to Specify RTF for Specific E-mail Addresses

Compose and send a message to yourself using Cyrillic characters.

  • When you receive this message in your Inbox, it should contain the proper formatting. If it does not, this indicates that your SMTP/POP3 server does not support RTF, and you will need to contact your mail server administrator, or use a different mail service to send your Cyrillic messages.
  • If you are able to read Cyrillic messages that you send to yourself, but your recipients are still not able to do so, it indicates that either the mail server on the receiving end, or the receiving client cannot handle the RTF format, or is not correctly configured to handle Cyrillic messages. You may find it preferable to compose your message in a word processing program, such as Microsoft Word, using Cyrillic characters, and then attach the document to the e-mail message that you want to send.
Modification Type:MajorLast Reviewed:10/8/2003
Keywords:kbprb KB198867
©2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.