OL2000: Microsoft Does Not Support Setting the "Body" Property to Rich Text Format (312168)

SUMMARY

The Outlook 2000 object model allows you to programmatically assign a Rich Text Format (RTF) stream to the Body property to display the text as RTF in the body of an item. However, this functionality is not designed to work. This functionality was not tested before Outlook 2000 was released; therefore, Microsoft does not support this functionality.

MORE INFORMATION

Microsoft Outlook 97, Microsoft Outlook 98, and Microsoft Outlook 2002 do not provide this functionality.

This functionality exists because Microsoft Office 2000 includes an updated version of a dynamic link library (DLL) that provides RTF functionality. This functionality was discovered after Outlook was released, and although this functionality does not appear to cause any adverse side effects, it will not work in later versions of Outlook.

Because this functionality was not designed to work and was not tested, Microsoft does not recommend that you use this functionality in Outlook 2000, and Microsoft does not support this functionality in Outlook 2000. Instead, consider using HTML-based mail messages and the HTMLBody property in the Outlook object model. If for some reason you must use an RTF-formatted mail message, you can either:

Create an e-mail message with the Messaging Application Programming Interface (MAPI). This requires programming in C/C++. -or-
Create an e-mail message by using the sample DLL that is described in the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article:
172038 DLL to Read and Write RTF with Active Messaging

REFERENCES

For additional information about using the "Body" property, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

201105 OL2000: Working with the Message or Body of an Outlook Item

For additional information about available resources and answersto commonly asked questions about Outlook solutions, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

146636 OL2000: Questions About Custom Forms and Outlook Solutions