Eliminate Formatting in Outlook Or Outlook Express

I often use copy and paste to take content from one e-mail and add it to another. Because of the cost of ink and the limited knowledge of some of my friends, I usually like to make fonts smaller and change them from color to black. But I often have a hard time changing both the font and the color, and sometimes I can't do either. I'm wondering whether this has something to do with the originator's programs. In any case, I'd appreciate any help that you can offer in this area.

Jan Bendus

Whether you reply or copy/paste, cleaning up formatting in HTML-based e-mail messages can be tough. Just because the sender liked pale green text against a background of clouds doesn't mean your reply needs to be equally illegible. The easiest solution is to convert the message to plain text and then, if desired, back to HTML. To do that in Outlook, you would select Format | Plain Text from the message's menu, click Yes to confirm you want to discard the formatting, and then select Format | HTML. Using just the keyboard, you can accomplish this by typing Alt-O, T, Y, Alt-O, H. In Outlook Express, you'd select Format | Plain Text, click OK to confirm, then select Format | Rich Text (HTML). Again, this would be Alt+O, X, Spacebar, Alt+O, and R on the keyboard. Once you've removed the unwanted formatting, you can format the remaining text any way you please.