489283 - Table format is broken in few incoming mails from MS Outlook

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Thunderbird :: Message Reader UI, defect)

Description

[Saikat]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.8) Gecko/2009032609 Firefox/3.0.8
Build Identifier: Thunderbird/2.0.0.21

Suppose an MS Outlook user sent me a table from Excel Sheet by pasting it in the body of the mail. I received the mail but the table format is corrupted. There is now no row and column, just the text and zigzagged. Though in the sender end at MS Outlook sent item it looks(table) well and ok.

Any solution(it should come at Thunderbird end) for this problem will be appreciated. Thanks



Reproducible: Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:
1. view->message body as->original HTML
2. changing incoming mail character encoding in several formats

Actual Results:  
No change, the table format still corrupted for few mails.

Comment 1

[hansen]

We need more information. The corrupted mail would be helpful.
Can you attach it to the bug (strip private information)?

Comment 2

[Saikat]

Attachment: Corrupted Mail

Comment 3

[Saikat]

Yes, of course. I attached one of the corrupted mails.

Thanks.

Comment 4

[hansen]

The mail you attached is correct - in Microsoft-country.

Most mail clients send mails as plain text and HTML, so people without HTML-viewers still can read the mail.

Outlook (or Exchange) sends with it's proprietary format called MS-TNEF.
Outlook can be configured also send plain text, which is your case.

Outlook should send mails in plain text and HTML, so it can speak with the rest of the world. See how to configure Outlook:
http://email.about.com/od/outlooktips/qt/et121705.htm

There's a bug about supporting MS-TNEF, but marking this bug as invalid.
Read more about support for MS-TNEF in bug 77811.

Comment 5

[Saikat]

Thanks for the help.

But how can I tell all the senders to configure their OUTLOOK?
Isn't it better if we can resolve the issue at our end(Thunderbird)?
 
Anyway thanks again.

Comment 6

[hansen]

I have to disagree. This isn't a Thunderbird-issue.

Outlook is sending mails in a closed format, but the rest of the mail-world can't read it.
Microsoft should change this, so Outlook sends plain text and HTML.

You just reply to the people sending MS-TNEF mails and tell them that you don't have Outlook and can't read their mails.