We use Outlook for our email. My daughter uses Gmail where she lives.
She says every time she receives an e-mail reply from me there is a vertical line down the left side of it, and if she âremoves formatâ (or something like that), the line goes away, but then she then gets all those âcarrotâ signs and has to go in and remove those!
Yet, when she sends an e-mail to me, it looks fine. I donât think I ever remember seeing that vertical line or carrots from her e-mails.
I have received e-mail from others that look like that though.
Whatâs the story on this! How and why does this happen to some and not others?
In a word: reply. You said it yourself. 
What youâre seeing is very common among email programs. Itâs an indicator that youâre replying to a message.
Itâs useful. Even better, itâs configurable.
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Reply indicator
Letâs say I send you a message:
From: Leo
To: You
Subject: Example Email
Thanks for visiting https://askleo.com!
Leo
All well and good. Now, letâs have you reply to it:
From: You
To: Leo
Subject: Re: Example Email
Leo wrote:
>
> Thanks for visiting https://askleo.com!
>
> Leo
Youâre very welcome, Leo! I enjoyed the site.
You
The email program included your original message as part of my reply, but prefixed every line with â> â to set it apart from any new message that you would presumably add at the bottom.
In âRich Textâ or HTML format (or in some mail programs, in all cases), it might be displayed as a vertical bar instead:
From: You
To: Leo
Subject: Re: Example Email
Leo wrote:
Thanks for visiting https://askleo.com!
Leo
Youâre very welcome Leo! I enjoyed the site.
You
Most people find that useful as conversations get long and we start to forget who said what along the way. Since this happens on each reply, itâs not uncommon to see conversations with the â>â nested deeply, or in several sections.
For example, if Iâm having a lengthy conversation with someone, I might set up my reply in several parts:
> their original email on a topic
My reply to that specific topic
> their original email on a separate topic or sub-topic
My reply to that separate topic or sub-topic
> their original email continues
My reply to this continuation.
This helps us both keep track of what parts of the message Iâm replying to.
But what if you donât want any of that?
Reply formatting
Since youâre using Outlook, Iâll show you there, but other email programs have similar settings.
In Outlook, click on the File menu and then on Options on the left-hand side.
In the resulting âOutlook Optionsâ dialog box, click on the Mail item on the left.
In the pane on the right, then, scroll down to find âReplies and forwardsâ.
Note the two items âWhen replying to a messageâ and âWhen forwarding a messageâ. These control how Outlook handles this exact situation for both replies and forwards.
The options include:
- Do not include original message: the text of the message youâre replying to is not included when you reply â youâll start with a blank message body.
- Attach original message: the original message to which you are replying is included as an attachment with your reply, typically in â.emlâ format. When the recipient receives your reply, they can open the attachment to see the original message. (Exactly how will depend on what email program or interface they are using.)
- Include original message text: the body of the message youâre replying to is placed in your reply without modification. Usually you start typing below it.
- Include and indent original message text: Like the previous option, except that the original message text is indented, so itâs more obvious where it ends and where your reply to it begins.
- Prefix each line of the original message: Like the previous option, but instead of indenting, each line of the original message is prefixed with either vertical bars, if your message is in HTML format, or a character, if your message is in plain text. In most cases today, email is in HTML format.
Iâm guessing you have the last one set.
From your description, you probably want to turn the whole thing off with âDo not include original messageâ.
My personal recommendation, however, is to use âPrefix each line of the original messageâ. Including the original really helps people remember what the conversation is about, and setting it apart with a prefix of some sort â be it a vertical bar or the â>â character â keeps it clear which part is the original message and which part is your reply.
Do this
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Wow! Iâm so impressed! Iâve never had a question answered that Iâve asked before!
You mentioned I might have the âlast oneâ checked i.e.: (prefix each line of the original message) but actually my defaults have always been (and still seem to be) the 3rd choice: (include original message text).
So I guess that begs the question:
does the 3rd option âtypically default to â>â also?!
Am I better off switching to the last option? (i.e. prefix each lineâŠ)?
And, when I go to tools, options, mail format, then message format, there is an option with two choices:
compose in this message format: HTML (I chose HTML)
then there are two choices:
1. use microsoft office word 2003 to edit e-mail messages or,
2. use microsoft office 2003 to read rich text e-mail messages.
I guess that wouldnât affect this issue weâre having at all?, since Iâm composing in HTML?
Iâm just trying to think of other âlittleâ settings that might be causing this issue; because I donât see this issue happening with most people! Even those with gmail! Just my daughter and me! aaarrgghh..
Any additional input from anyone would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks so very much!
As to using Word: I typically recommend NOT doing so. Its HTML is horrible, and itâs a huge piece of software just to edit email. (And youâre right, shouldnât impact this issue.)
03-Jul-2009
Actually, Denise, this issue happens with almost everyone using email. I see it ALL the time. And as you have no control over how someone else has THEIR email program configured, it may be one of those things youâll just have to get used to.
In answer to your follow-up questions, you donât NEED to use Word to edit or read your messages, Outlook can handle most tasks natively.
Not sure if this is the exact situation described above, but often I get messages with those bars also. Iâve found they are indicative of the message being put in a table by the email program when the message is forwarded. Try this â hover slowly around the top of the message and see if you get the fat black vertical arrow that shows a table is present. If so, click when you see the arrow and the table will highlight. Then go to TABLE in the upper formatting bar and select CONVERT, then âconvert table to textâ and the bar should go away because the table is gone. Sometimes you have to do it a number of times because every time the message was forwarded, a new table was nested. It takes patience, but eventually you can get the entire message into text with no vertical bars on the left.
Hope that works for you.
If these are the same bars I get in my email, they are annoying, esp. when I want to forward content. I have tried going to the first line and using the backspace to erase them, but that doesnât work. To get rid of them and reformat the text, I use the wonderful little program Emailstripper. I copy the message, then paste it into the program, click the Strip It command. All formatting goes away, including the