OL2000: Mail Merge to Electronic Mail Uses Plain Text

Outlook mail merge to electronic mail defaults to plain text no matter what you set as your default mail format.

There is no satisfactory workaround to this issue by using the mail merge function from either Microsoft Outlook, or Microsoft Word. All options to mail merge to electronic mail result in plain-text formatted messages, which do not support rich formatting, such as hyperlinks, or embedded graphics.

To send messages using other formats, such as Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) or Rich Text, you must address separate messages to each recipient, or include all e-mail addresses in the To field of one message. Use of a distribution list may be the best solution in the latter case. For another workaround, you can format a Word document, and then mail merge to electronic mail with the Word document as an attachment to your e-mail message.

For additional information about mail merging with Outlook and Word, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: