It is wonderful and nice to send and receive emails using stationery. But if you reply to such a rich message in Outlook Express, have you noticed and been annoyed by how it includes the original background image and sound in your reply?
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If the original message's animations and music interfere with your message, there should be a way to get rid of them. And there is.
To remove images and sounds when replying in Outlook Express:
- Select Format | Plain Text from the menu while composing the reply.
- Optionally, select Format | Rich Text (HTML) again to style your own message.
If switching to plain text and eliminating all styling from the message destroys the text of the original message beyond repair so that it does not serve its purpose — letting the recipient of the reply know what you are replying to — any longer, you can employ a more subtle but also more involved way of removing background sounds and images:
- If you have already switched to plain text, close the message and start with a fresh reply.
- Open the tab for editing the HTML source.
- Look for "<BODY [...] background=cid:[...]" and delete the "background=cid:[...]" part to remove the background image.
- If the source says "<BODY id=ridBody bgColor=#ffffff background=cid:000c01c48e6d$57a99ed0$0e00a8c0@rosenote>", for example, make it read "<BODY id=ridBody bgColor=#ffffff>".
- You can also remove any "bgColor" attribute to remove the background color in addition to removing the background image.
- Look for "<BGSOUND [...] src=[...]>" and delete it completely.
- You can also watch for "<IMG [...] src=[...]>" tags and remove them to delete particular pictures from your reply.
