How to stop Outlook from changing the justification of text from left aligned to fully justified.

Anonymous
2023-04-13T02:02:04+00:00

Almost all email newsletters that come to Outlook are shown with fully justified text with words auto-hyphenated at line breaks when the email is NOT sent that way from the sender. I've seen this from at least three different external senders.

How do we stop Outlook from changing the line justification of incoming emails so they are shown as they are intended by the sender?

Outlook | Windows | Classic Outlook for Windows | For home

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Anonymous
2024-04-10T19:17:31+00:00

Hi all,

The new Typography features are now available in production. The next step is that the feature is now being enabled by default starting with Current Channel Version 2403 (Build 17410.20000).

Since the initial release the team added controls to manage this feature in the client, Typography improvements in Word and Outlook for Windows (microsoft365.com).

Note:

  • Since this thread is old it may get locked again. If you need further help, please post a new thread.
  • There will be a new Typography article for Production shortly on https://support.microsoft.com/ 

In Outlook:

  1. The new typography features are enabled in the Reading Pane. Default values are “on” for Beta Chanel and “on” for Production starting with Channel Version 2403 (Build 17410.20000).
  2. To show the Reading Pane, click View > Reading Pane > Right or Bottom.
  3. To turn off these features in Outlook Desktop, click File > Options > Mail > Editor Options > Advanced > Reading mode, and then clear the Advanced Typography in Reading Mode checkbox.
  4. To turn off only Use Smart Justification or Use Hyphenationindividually, clear the corresponding check box.
  5. The sender can disable the features for the emails they create, and those settings will not be overwritten by settings on recipient's computer.

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Anonymous
2024-09-23T00:57:45+00:00

... Outlook now fully justifies and over-hyphenates for all email, including HTML email (sent from Mailchimp or other mass email services). The Outlook client does this at the recipient display level, and there doesn't seem to be any easy way to turn it off. Those settings might work for Outlook to Outlook, in which case, there might be an email level override that somebody can work out.

Hmm ... I haven't seen that.

It might depend very much on one's computer environment and Outlook type and version.

I'm using the MS 365 desktop (not the 'New') Outlook on Windows 11, currently at Version 2408 (Build 17928.20156). What are you using?

My advanced typography settings in File > Options > Mail > Editor Options > Advanced are "Use Advanced Typography" is OFF, and "Disable Advanced Typography for outgoing mail" is also OFF.

None of my email correspondents sees any of my messages in Advanced Typography format, regardless of the email client either of us is using. Example client apps used by my correspondents include Thunderbird, Mac Mail, Outlook for Mac and Windows, various Android and iOS mail apps, and probably some webmail apps. Some have MS 365 (personal or business) mailboxes, and others use gmail or various other types of mail service.

When I send messages from my MS 365 outlook.com account via an Android app (Aqua Mail), those messages aren't being reformatted, either.

I don't see any received messages in Advanced Typography format, either in Outlook or in other clients such as that Android client app.

So ... with "Use Advanced Typography" turned off in desktop Outlook, my messages aren't being reformatted on sending, whether or not I also turn on "Disable Advanced Typography for outgoing mail".

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  1. Anonymous
    2023-07-25T19:34:28+00:00

    Completely agree with Kevin above.

    The biggest issue we see with this update (which is causing huge problems with our clients' email newsletters) is the alignment of tables. We need tables to be able to "float" to the right or left and the text to wrap. With the justification forced on us, the table HTML is trying to fit within the sentence and so causes large gaps or breaks in text. This is unacceptable as we often have clients floating images or text (using tables) to the left or right.

    Secondly, there are hyphens everywhere. We've had several clients complain already about all their newsletter titles breaking with a hyphen and there is literally no way to turn this off, or to give them an alternative solution.

    This auto justification should be, at the very least, a setting on the reader's end.

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-07-25T19:34:08+00:00

    Thank you, Gabriel, for the detailed explanation. I share Kevin's frustration as I was unable to uncover what was causing the issue and had no idea that it was a feature instead of a bug. I'll have to subscribe to the blog to stay more on top of developments.

    I have an email in progress now in HubSpot. My formatted copy is this

    But the test email I received looks like this

    Hyphenating the word "benefit" in the second line of the second bullet point was unnecessary as the full word could have fit on that line, and resulted in wide kerning in the text on that line. Same thing happens in the first line of the paragraph in the second bullet. How does this make the text more readable?

    Full justification is fine when you can control the kerning to eliminate the large gaps that sometimes occur. The point that I and others are trying to make is that I should be able to control the formatting of the message according to my company's brand standards and provide a consistent user experience. For Microsoft to decide that everyone should use full justification is an overstep in my opinion.

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-07-18T19:30:29+00:00

    Thanks! for what it's worth, some users with the same version and build of both Word and Outlook (desktop versions for Windows) see the issue, while others do not. I do not see the issue, but some of my peers do.

    I think the issue is with Word, the rendering source for Outlook for HTML messages.

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