Comments for Why do vertical bars appear on the left of some emails I send?

Comment from Sally on 2009-08-05

2009-08-05T14:20:03Z

If these are the same bars I get in my email, they are annoying, esp. when I want to forward content. I have tried going to the first line and using the backspace to erase them, but that doesn't work. To get rid of them and reformat the text, I use the wonderful little program Emailstripper. I copy the message, then paste it into the program, click the Strip It command. All formatting goes away, including the

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Comment from ellen mccauley on 2009-07-07

2009-07-07T15:49:09Z

Not sure if this is the exact situation described above, but often I get messages with those bars also. I've found they are indicative of the message being put in a table by the email program when the message is forwarded. Try this - hover slowly around the top of the message and see if you get the fat black vertical arrow that shows a table is present. If so, click when you see the arrow and the table will highlight. Then go to TABLE in the upper formatting bar and select CONVERT, then 'convert table to text' and the bar should go away because the table is gone. Sometimes you have to do it a number of times because every time the message was forwarded, a new table was nested. It takes patience, but eventually you can get the entire message into text with no vertical bars on the left.

Hope that works for you.

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Comment from PaulM on 2009-07-03

2009-07-03T17:09:01Z

Actually, Denise, this issue happens with almost everyone using email. I see it ALL the time. And as you have no control over how someone else has THEIR email program configured, it may be one of those things you'll just have to get used to.

In answer to your follow-up questions, you don't NEED to use Word to edit or read your messages, Outlook can handle most tasks natively.

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A comment on: Why do vertical bars appear on the left of some emails I send?

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Comment from Denise on 2009-07-02

2009-07-03T01:26:56Z

Wow! I'm so impressed! I've never had a question answered that I've asked before!

You mentioned I might have the "last one" checked i.e.: (prefix each line of the original message) but actually my defaults have always been (and still seem to be) the 3rd choice: (include original message text).

So I guess that begs the question:
does the 3rd option "typically default to ">" also?!

Am I better off switching to the last option? (i.e. prefix each line...)?

And, when I go to tools, options, mail format, then message format, there is an option with two choices:

compose in this message format: HTML (I chose HTML)
then there are two choices:
1. use microsoft office word 2003 to edit e-mail messages or,
2. use microsoft office 2003 to read rich text e-mail messages.

I guess that wouldn't affect this issue we're having at all?, since I'm composing in HTML?

I'm just trying to think of other "little" settings that might be causing this issue; because I don't see this issue happening with most people! Even those with gmail! Just my daughter and me! aaarrgghh..

Any additional input from anyone would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks so very much!

Not sure why it's happening with the setting you describe. (Make sure you're looking at Reply, not Forward - different settings, though same idea). You could set to prefix, and the alter the prefix to be nothing.
As to using Word: I typically recommend NOT doing so. Its HTML is horrible, and it's a huge piece of software just to edit email. (And you're right, shouldn't impact this issue.)

- Leo
03-Jul-2009

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A comment on: Why do vertical bars appear on the left of some emails I send?

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