Switchers beware - email from Mail is not processed by Outlook properly

Question

I was furious to learn yesterday that many of the emails I have sent over the past few months to Customers / Suppliers / Colleagues and friends just haven't been read properly. The reason for this due to Mail's failing to send a compatible format which can easily be read on outlook!!! Either the email is not able to be processed by Outlook properly, or Mail sends it in an unexpected format removing text from the message, unexpectedly. Just be very careful not to assume your email is being read in a way Mail presents it to you by your Outlook recipients!
This is absolutely unforgivable, IMHO, from such a basic application which is apparently part of the "most advances operating system in the world"! Apple like to keep crowing about the compatibility with Microsoft applications, but they cant even claim this for their basic bundled email client!
I have a few examples, here is one: create a new mail; type some text; leave 3 line spaces; type some more text; leave 3 more line spaces; type some text to sign off. Insert two photos by drag and drop into the two spaces you left between the text. The mail looks great doesn't it? Address it to a friend who uses Outlook (certainly Outlook 2008) on Windows (or an address which can be set-up on a Windows Outlook client), press send. Check out how it looks in your sent items, still looks great! Now check it on Outlook. The first piece of text is in the message body. The photos are there as attachments. The rest of your message has been shifted to two separate text attachments which look too innocuous to be bothered with. I wonder how this would look on a blackberry???
The point is, depending on how the mail is worded can mean the actual message can be completely lost and you would never know why?
This is a massive failing for Mail which I don't see many people discussing, so am I alone? Other examples include inserted line breaks in messages once they are read on Outlook. I dread to think how the mail appears on a blackberry?
If I knew how to include screen shots here I would.

Answer 1

Hi Barney, I am replying to you to apologise for coming across as adversarial. I didn’t mean to. I was venting frustration at Apple for what I see as causing me a problem using their Mail client as instructed, and the email not showing up in recipients Outlook clients as intended. I will not use this forum to vent frustration at Apple in future as it clearly upsets some people here.
I still feel that this is a major flaw on Apple’s part, especially as most other widely used clients and Webmail don’t present this problem. I will have users on my case asking me why Mail doesn’t send email properly to our customers who use Outlook. They will hate Entourage and it will drive them back towards Outlook on Windows, which I don’t want because I believe superior productivity can be achieved with Mail, Address Book, iCal etc.
Barney-15E wrote:
I send Mail to my Outlook account at work and it shows up exactly as I sent it, after I enable HTML in Outlook. My exchange server turns off HTML by default and I must specifically select it in each message. I have tried various methods including "Windows friendly," and I actually got better results by not using that option.
Communicating this to all our suppliers and customers is impractical.
Well then, just use Thunderbird.
That doesn’t help and is not why I am posting a topic here. I am just pointing out that it must be possible for Apple to address this issue by highlighting that Thunderbird has.
What every person should know is that there is no standard that prevents an email client from displaying an email any way it wishes. No matter what you do on your end when sending, the recipient's email client decides how to display the email. If you want people to see a document exactly as you prepared it, send a pdf. It is designed for that exact purpose. Email is not.
I agree. Every person should know this, but I don’t think they do. I do think users have the right to expect their email, at the very least, to be readable (all text present) in this scenario.
I agree that complex formatting, web publication style columns etc. should be preserved for HTML email and pdf etc. and not expect Mail to produce email readable by other receiving clients.
However, I think expecting users to convert documents to pdf just because they want to attach a photo is impractical, unproductive and unnecessary. Email is evolving from a pure text only way to communicate and users are being encouraged by Apple to use Mail for this purpose. I really don’t think I am expecting too much in this scenario. I think even Apple would agree to this. I could well be wrong though, which is why I’m using their forum.
It does send internet compatible email. How your recipient sees that message is up to their client.
I bow to your expertise here. Your forum status suggests you are more qualified than I on this topic and I am sure Apple are clever enough to ensure their client sends internet compatible email.
It certainly appears that the receiving client is at fault by seemingly not following internet standards as you suggest, in this case Outlook. However, it doesn’t help Mail users because Outlook is used by so many business customers and suppliers, so many family members and friends. Users of Mail should be aware of what is happening to their simple messages upon receipt by Outlook. Or Mail should compensate for this. I strongly feel that this is a major flaw. As mentioned, I don't know of another widely used client that has this problem with Outlook recipients. Surely this is as important to most users as ensuring email is internet compliant.
Outlook is so widely used that MS is powerful enough to ignore that, just because Mail follows certain standards, messages from Mail are pulled to pieces and miss-presented to Outlook users. Complaining to MS is a complete waste of time. Outlook writes it's own standards and as far as I know, Mail is the only email client that cant send this simple mail in a way that can be easily read by Outlook users.
Trying to make your software "Microsoft compliant" is stupid, ...
I think many, including Apple, and most software developers and users think otherwise. Take a look at one post in this forum entitled Snow Leopard with Exchange support not working 33,000+ views and proof that Apple are trying hard to interact properly with MS email products.
...as they will just change the specification to break your program.
I think it’s an unfortunate but necessary evil at the moment. You are probably right to elude to the fact that the industry should be better regulated.