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
    2025-02-26T21:39:02+00:00

    Have we had issue or complains where the MSO fix added to the template code only works on preivew and the fix doesn't work when you double click the email to open it in a seperate window?

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  2. Anonymous
    2025-02-18T22:40:09+00:00

    Thanks for the information, Gabriel!

    "There is a bug currently that the settings to control if Typography is currently enabled in Outlook are missing. This just got fixed and it will be added back in Version 2502 Build 18501.xxxxx. This should get to Current Channel ~2/24/25."

    I'm eagerly awaiting 2502 Build 18501, because suddenly -- within the last 48 hours -- my Outlook (2501 build 18429.20132) has Advanced Typography turned on, but with the settings missing I can't turn it off again. Advanced Typography had been reliably off for months. I don't know when the settings went missing.

    I set the registry key

    HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Word\Options\WordMail\AdvancedTypographyReading to 0, but that didn't change anything.

    The "Disable Advanced Typography for outgoing mail" settings are present and appear to be working, but there's no "Advanced Typography".

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    Edit: 21 Feb 2025 ~08:30 AEDT -- I manually ran "Update Now" in Outlook > File > Office Account > Update Options, and it picked up version 2502 Build 18526.20086*, which has made the Advanced Typography settings visible again. They were all ON, of course. I've turned them off, and (so far) Outlook seems to be honouring my justification preferences again.*

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  3. Anonymous
    2025-02-06T12:17:36+00:00

    Thanks for the update.

    I'm aware of the bug and the registry fix.

    I'm not really comfortable applying a registry fix for something like this for thousands of clients. We've directed our employees to turn off the advanced typography setting.

    It's clear that the opinions of communication professionals throughout the thread that the move to Advanced Typrography is misguided at best. As a large organization, we should be able to turn it off at the tenant level, like we were able to do during their 'testing'.

    While it's not in the current build of the new Outlook client, I hope it's not something they add back.

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