How to force Outlook 2010 to forward HTML emails as plain text?

Question

We are having problems with Mac users (running Entourage and Outlook) getting ".dat" attachments when receiving HTML emails sent from our PC users (running Outlook 2010).

Initially, I set the default format for new emails created in Outlook to plain text; however, we are still having the same problem when forwarding HTML emails we receive from other people to the Mac users (i.e. they get sent back out in HTML (and often end up with attachments and formatting locked up in .dat attachments).

How can we configure Outlook 2010 so that not only new emails but also forwarded emails are converted to plain text?

Answer 1

Unfortunately you can't. Outlook doesn't provide the option to Reply/Forward messages in specified format out of the box.

You can use third-party tools though. I can recommend ReliefJet Quick Tweaks because I'm one of its developers. You can set "Always reply using format" option to "Plain Text" and set "also use this format when forwarding". After that all your replies and forwards will be forced to plain text format.