iCal meeting request from POP3 or IMAP server account may be unformatted

When you send an Internet (iCal) meeting request by using a server account other than a Microsoft Exchange Server account (for example, by using a POP3 or IMAP account), the recipient may receive an unformatted meeting request.

This behavior occurs even though the iCal setting in Microsoft Outlook is selected by default.

This behavior occurs if an iCal meeting request is sent from a non-Exchange Server account and is in a format that the Internet e-mail client does not recognize.

To resolve this behavior, change the format before you send the meeting request. To do this, follow these steps:

1. On the File menu, click New, and then click Meeting Request.
2. In the Meeting Request dialog box, in the To box, type the recipient's e-mail address, and then double-click the e-mail address.
3. In the E-mail Properties dialog box, in the Internet format box, change the option from Let Outlook decide the best sending format to Send Plain Text only.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.

Meeting requests that are sent to the Internet from Outlook are automatically formatted to Rich Text Format (RTF) and are sent in Transport-Neutral Encapsulation Format (TNEF). Because many Internet e-mail clients do not recognize TNEF, messages may be unformatted or even unrecognizable.

This behavior does not occur when you use an Exchange Server account because Exchange automatically sends meeting requests to the Internet in iCal format.

For more information on TNEF and Internet Mail, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: