Outlook 2003 Issue: Rec'd Emails appear in odd font

One of our clients is running MS Office 2003. When she receives emails from certain individuals, they appear in MS Outlook font (looks like a series of rectangles and straight vertical lines). The incoming email uses this unreadable font when in the preview pane and when it is double-clicked to read on full screen. If we click on reply however, MS Word opens as the email editor, and the MS Outlook font changes to a human-readable Courier New.

I have forwarded the troublesome email to myself and I have no problems opening it within my MS Office 2003 app. Using a remote desktop connection, I have compared our Outlook settings side by side and find no differences in mail options. I have also rebuilt the profile to see if something became screwy in some hidden setting, but the problem persisted. I also checked for Office updates, but the program was up to date.

Why is the email showing up with the rectangles and lines? How do I solve this? I have a feeling that the font change while replying is a hint as to finding a solution, but my co-workers and I are a little stumped.

Thanks everyone!
-Mike in Denver

 

Any recommendations on how to change the font when reading emails? I've already changed the reading formats between Plain Text <-> HTML Text <-> Rich Text, but that didn't seem to make a difference.

 

I contacted the sender and she explains that she is using 10pt Arial. I've since tested Arial on the problematic Outlook client, as well as in Word and it worked fine.

 

I found a solution. I reloaded her Windows profile and the font issue went away. Must have been something stuck in her Application Data/Microsoft/Outlook folder.

Thanks for your help.

 

That's why I did it