Help me print "clean" Outlook messages.

November 13, 2006 1:42 PM

How can I print Outlook messages without my personal information on top and the date on bottom?

I need to print out a ton of Outlook messages that I neither sent nor received. I'd like them to just be the messages themselves, but when I print it shows my username on top and the date printed on bottom, like so:

AgentRocket (CHICAGO - x87563)
_______________________________

To: XXXX
From: XXXX
Date: XXXX

hello. let's have lunch, etc.

_______________________________

11/13/2006

I just want the stuff between the lines, as I will be using this stuff later and don't want people to see when we printed it or who printed it.

Surely there must be a way to do this, right? I can't find the option anywhere. Google shows me this person, who had no luck. Am I doomed?

posted by AgentRocket to computers & internet (17 comments total)

I don't know anything about Outlook, but if there's no software solution to this, you could take the stack of printouts to the paper cutter and cut your username off the top (and the date off the bottom if it always appears in the same spot). If it's a really big stack of paper, a print shop will probably cut it for you for a buck or two.
posted by winston at 1:49 PM on November 13, 2006

Copy/paste the text into Notepad and print from there.
posted by kenchie at 1:50 PM on November 13, 2006

(and if you need it on letter-size paper, you can then photocopy the whole stack)
posted by winston at 1:51 PM on November 13, 2006

A quick solution would be to reinstall Office on another machine and enter bogus user information. Then open the PST (or what have you) and print from there.
posted by odinsdream at 1:57 PM on November 13, 2006

You should be able to define a print style (page setup). The default one on Outlook tends to be "Memo" which prints all that stuff. You can define a new print style, and then select that for every message you want to print without the header and footer info.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 1:58 PM on November 13, 2006

Along the same lines, I have many occasions where I need to cut and paste the exact same information into a 'Help Ticket'.

Outlook requires you to copy the email header separate from the email text, which makes this a labor-intensive activity.

If anyone knows of an easier way to do this, I would appreciate the pointer. I believe that this would also provide a solution to AgentRocket's question.
posted by rstory at 2:23 PM on November 13, 2006

Create a new Outlook Profile with "Profile Name" of "x" or ".".

Do this by double-cllicking "Mail" in your control panel, then "Show Profiles", then "Add..." Choose this profile when you start Outlook. The "x" or "." will print, but at least it won't be your name.

For the date, choose "File" -> "Page Setup" -> "Define Print Styles" and "Edit" whichever is your default style to remove the date field from the footer.
posted by trip and a half at 2:23 PM on November 13, 2006

Correction: "." won't work (just tried it). Use "x".
posted by trip and a half at 2:26 PM on November 13, 2006

You could print it to a PDF and redact the information you don't want. And by redact I mean draw a white rectangle over the information you don't want displayed.

It's a very labor intensive method, but it will work.
posted by bDiddy at 2:31 PM on November 13, 2006

Ugh. Further clarification. You don't need to create an email account for this new profile -- just click "Close" when it tries to make you. You'll need to verify that you want to create the new profile without an account.

Once back at the profile list, check "Prompt for a profile to be used." Next time you start Outlook, you'll be prompted. Choose "x". You'll then need to load the appropriate PST file usiinf "File" -> "Open" -> "Outlook Data File..."
posted by trip and a half at 2:34 PM on November 13, 2006

s/usiinf/using Ack.
posted by trip and a half at 2:37 PM on November 13, 2006

Ugh. Even further clarification (sorry, it's been a while since I set all this up from scratch): you do want to create an email account (otherwise Outlook will print "Unknown" at the top of each email). Simply enter "." in each of the fields. Outlook will tell you you've entered an invalid email address, but just click "No" when it asks if you want to change it.

From now on, only "." will print at the top of emails when you use this profile.
posted by trip and a half at 3:05 PM on November 13, 2006

rstory, to avoid the separate header copying, I usually hit "reply" to the email first, then copy everything in the draft reply email (except any automatic signatures of mine that pop up on replying) into a word document.
posted by ubu at 3:33 PM on November 13, 2006

rstory, to avoid the separate header copying, I usually hit "reply" to the email first, then copy everything in the draft reply email

ditto
posted by bda1972 at 7:32 PM on November 13, 2006 [1 favorite]

ubu and bda1972 - good suggestion with the replying and copying... Going one step further though, try using the forward function too. I use Outlook Express and when I reply to a message, I get that bar on the left side of the message to which I'm replying (used to separate my message from the original). When you use the forward function, this bar isn't there and cannot interfere with the formatting of the message you are copying and pasting.
posted by youngergirl44 at 10:25 PM on November 13, 2006

You could print it to a PDF and redact the information you don't want. And by redact I mean draw a white rectangle over the information you don't want displayed.

Just a note - do not do this. This does not remove information, it simply places it under a colored rectangle. Various government agencies have gotten into trouble using this method and releasing classified information.
posted by odinsdream at 3:29 PM on November 14, 2006

Thank you ubu and bda1972 for your suggestion on using the reply. This works great.

youngergirl44, I think I will end up using the forward function, as you have suggested, for the simple reason that this will keep me from accidentally sending a reply that I do not intend.

Thanks all.
posted by rstory at 5:22 PM on November 14, 2006