Setting text vs HTML message composition in Hotmail

March 7, 2005 3:56 PM

How can I help others set their default message format to "text" in Hotmail?

It's gotta be possible, because I get plain text messages from some of my acquaintances. But I can't find the setting in Hotmail when I log in, and none of said acquaintances can remember how they did it.

posted by namespan to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

Is it possible they're using Outlook Express to serve as a client for Hotmail, and that's why you're getting text messages? I don't see any way to do it in the web front-end to the program.

In the help text it talks about a rich text editor. It's a feature that is exclusive to IE (and I'm assuming IE on a PC), so I can't check from Moz on a Mac. It's possible that there is a global setting in there.

I guess it also might have been an option that was removed at some point so that it still remembers the setting but provides no way to change it. That seems unlikely though.
posted by willnot at 5:23 PM on March 7, 2005

If you use Firefox as your browser, your messages are sent as plain text.
posted by pmbuko at 5:23 PM on March 7, 2005

Also, using IE and while composing a message, select "Rich text editor off" from the Tools menu. It will remember your setting between sessions.
posted by pmbuko at 5:25 PM on March 7, 2005

Funny you should ask.

I just found these instructions for plaintext mailing from a ridiculous number of email clients.
posted by Caviar at 7:19 PM on March 7, 2005