Restricting email to plain-text only? 1

[EricDM606]

Is there a way on Exchange 5.5 to restrict all emails to plain-text only as a global setting? Can someone point me in the right direction?

Thanks!

Eric M.

 

[zbnet]

Within the server, or out to the Internet?

 

[EricDM606]

Well, my CIO is asking if we can do both.

He would like to force all internal users to transmit email via plain-text.

He would also like to force all users to recieve mail as plain-text.

This is more of a research project than an implementation, I'm just gathering info. Any help is much appreciated.

Eric M.

 

[zbnet]

IMS can restrict external email to plain text.

Internal to Exchange is more difficult - it's rich text by design! Have you considered junking Exchange and replacing it with a pop3 email server?

 

[EricDM606]

That's not going to happen. This agency lives off of Exchange & Outlook.

IMS? What's that?

Eric M.

 

[zbnet]

Internet Mail Service.

The agency is wedded to Outlook and Exchange, but wants to restrict email to plain text? Go figure.

 

[EricDM606]

Allright, I had a discussion with my boss. I informed him a/b RTF inside our agency and that the IMS is already configured to transmit as plain-text only.

What I'm trying to figure out is if there is a way to convert incoming mail into plain text even if it was sent as HTML. My guess was that I could reject any emails not sent as plain text (using my spam appliance or something), but I was not sure if you could actually convert into plain text. Suggestions?

Eric M.

 

[zbnet]

Okay, that's a more focused question.

You can either do it on the client, or on the server. In fact, Outlook 2003 has an option to show HTML mail as plain text, although it doesn't stop users switching it back. Older versions of Outlook have a reg entry you can set, READASPLAIN.

Out of the box, you can't force the 5.5 IMS to convert rich text content to plain text, but there are a number of coded and 3rd-party solutions.

http://www.outlookcode.com/d/code/zaphtml.htm

has some leads to get you started.

 

[EricDM606]

Thanks!

Since I'm migrating from 5.5 to 2003 in the next 3 months, does 2003 offer me a solution to this problem? I will submit another thread in the 2003 forum to see who can assist.

Eric M.