BACK

Read e-mails in plain text only

What does this mean? You may have noticed that some people like to send you e-mails that are full of colour and images, formating (bold, italics, underlined, and so on). The chances are these have been sent in HTML or Richtext format.

Why does that matter? Well, the e-mail can hide more malicious code than if you send only a plain text e-mail. So, it follows that if you open your e-mails in plain text, you are reducing the opportunities for someone to trick you into clicking on a link or image that leads to something unexpected.

If you make these changes, get used to the fact that what you will see is only the text and no falling snowflakes, jumping beans, or animated cartoons inside your e-mails.

This time you will be making changes inside Outlook Express or Outlook 2003 or later. [Earlier versions of Outlook are more complex to change - please contact me or visit the Microsoft pages on this topic.]

To help increase your e-mail security, set your e-mail program to read all messages you receive as plain text.

To read messages in plain text in Microsoft Outlook Express:

1. From the Outlook Express Tools menu, click Options.
2. In the Options dialog box, click the Read tab.
3. Select the Read all messages in plain text checkbox.
4. Click OK.

To read messages in plain text in Microsoft Outlook 2003:

1. From the Outlook Tools menu, click Options.
2. In the Options dialog box, click the Preferences tab, and then click the E-mail Options button.
3. In the E-mail Options dialog box, select the Read all standard mail in plain text checkbox.
4. Click OK to close the E-mail Options dialog box, and then click OK to close the Options dialog box.