Breaking the Outlook 2010 e-mail blue quote line for inline responses
- by Jez
This has to be the most infuriating regression from Outlook 2003 to 2007. It also exists the same in Outlook 2010, as far as I can tell.
When you reply to an HTML e-mail message in Outlook, the quoted text has a blue line down the side, and is usually at the bottom of the message:
Now in Outlook 2003, when replying to HTML-formatted messages in Outlook, you used to be able to reply inline quite easily, by getting to the point in the quoted message you wanted to reply to, and pressing the 'decrease indent' button:
Since Outlook 2007 (and 2010), they replaced the e-mail editor with Microsoft Word. This
means the blue line is implemented in a different way; it uses a blue left border. This makes it tougher to break the line up. After much ado, I found a couple of pages that said that you could remove all formatting by pressing ctrl-Q, which would remove the blue line next to the cursor and allow inline replies:
OK, not too bad on the face of it. I can live with that. But here's the kick in the teeth; try sending that mail. I'll send it to myself. What do I receive? This:
Outlook 2010 reinstated the blue line, where I had removed it, upon my sending the e-mail! For God's sake! The two pages I linked to above don't seem to address Outlook's reinstating of the blue line upon sending.
So, does anyone know how you can actually reply inline in Outlook 2010 (or Outlook 2007) e-mail without the blue line being reinstated? Before anyone says, I do not want to convert the message to plaintext, and I do not want to just indent replies and have to manually build the blue line myself. I want something like the Outlook 2003 behaviour; I reply, Outlook creates the blue line, and I can break it up with inline replies, send it, and my inline formatting stays.
My hopes aren't high - Microsoft seem to have gone to some trouble to actively prevent inline replies here, for some reason - but I'd appreciate anyone's insights. Cheers!
