Should the need arise and you need to remove the HTML part of a received message, it is easily done and also done in the same manner as removing an attachment. The HTML part is an attachment though Outlook Express will show it as an HTML message. Other mail and news readers will show the HTML part as an attachment.
First off, drag and drop the message to the Desktop.
Change the file extension to .txt. (file extensions must be showing, see Show File Extensions for Files)
Open it in Notepad by double clicking on it.
At the bottom of the page is an example of what you can expect to find. The first part are the message headers added by the mail or news server followed by the section that details the attachment type, this example is Content-Type: multipart/alternative; and shows the beginning and ending boundaries which contain in them an identifier, the NextPart_000_01ED_01C1BFDC.8EDAAA50 Note that the beginning and ending are the same.
Look for the Content-Type: text/html;
If you look at the line above it, the NextPart line and click on the first character to put the edit cursor at that point.
Now, scroll down to the NextPart line just below it. Hold the SHIFT key down and click on the last character to highlight it. Press the Delete key to remove it.
Now, save it then rename the extension to .eml and drag and drop it into an Outlook Express Mail folder. You should just see the text only with no HTML formatting.
These are the headers.
Status: U
Return-Path: <majik@mindspring.com>
Received: from barry.mail.mindspring.net ([207.69.200.25])
by farley.mail.mindspring.net (Earthlink Mail Service) with ESMTP id 16Gi1apA3Nl3pa0
for <majik@mindspring.com>; Wed, 27 Feb 2002 23:18:08 -0500 (EST)
Received: from user-38lcesa.dialup.mindspring.com ([209.86.59.138] helo=majik)
by barry.mail.mindspring.net with smtp (Exim 3.33 #1)
id 16gI14-0006hN-00
for majik@mindspring.com; Wed, 27 Feb 2002 23:18:05 -0500
Message-ID: <01f101c1c00e$de58a0f0$0100a8c0@majik>
From: "Majik" <majik@mindspring.com>
To: "David Guess" <majik@mindspring.com>
Subject: Text Message for HTML Attachment Removal
Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 22:17:35 -0600
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/mixed;
boundary="----=_NextPart_000_01ED_01C1BFDC.8EDAAA50"
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000
This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
------=_NextPart_000_01ED_01C1BFDC.8EDAAA50
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----=_NextPart_001_01EE_01C1BFDC.8EDAAA50"
The above is the end of the headers and the part that tells Outlook Express
what type of encoding is used. We will retain all of it.
------=_NextPart_001_01EE_01C1BFDC.8EDAAA50
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Test Text in HTML.
The part above would be the text part of the message. If you look at the HTML part, you will see it duplicated with the HTML formatting added.
The part below will be what is removed. Everything above it is retained. If not, you can end up removing part of the text of the message and the encoding type and end up with some of the headers in your text message which you don't want.
------=_NextPart_001_01EE_01C1BFDC.8EDAAA50
Content-Type: text/html;
charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=3DContent-Type content=3D"text/html; =
charset=3Diso-8859-1">
<META content=3D"MSHTML 6.00.2713.1100" name=3DGENERATOR>
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=3D#ffffff>
<DIV><FONT face=3D"Comic Sans MS" color=3D#800000 size=3D2>Test Text in=20
HTML.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV></BODY></HTML>
------=_NextPart_001_01EE_01C1BFDC.8EDAAA50--