Microsoft Outlook/Russian

[Richard Robin]

"When I was using Outlook Express for my email, I could write, receive
messages, and read in Russian. A few days ago I switched into Microsoft
Outlook. I cannot read Russian..."

The simple answer is: Outlook Express can do Russian. Outlook cannot, unless
you are an expert in encodings (koi8, Windows Cyrillic 1251, Unicode, etc.).
And even then, it's a royal pain.

I don't profess to be an encodings expert at the programmatic level, but I
have gained through trail and error a considerable amount of expertise in
Cyrillic encodings. But with Outlook (not Express) it's has been lots of
trial and mostly error.

A year ago, I switched from Netscape Messenger to Outlook because Netscape
had such difficulties doing e-mail in "Windows" Cyrillic. It insisted on
converting everything to koi8 (the e-mail standard - with millions of
religiously fervent adherents). The workaround for koi8 was cumbersome. But
Outlook was far worse. Only after lots and lots of tweaking was I able to
get and send messages more or less reliably. (Emphasis on "more or LESS,")
And even so, Russian header information (Russian Cyrillic names, topic
information) was always hopelessly mangled. Outlook also corrupted Cyrillic
information in my address book and contact list. Some on-line
Cyrillicize-your-PC usent group postings indicated that there were numerous
bugs in encoding conversions for Outlook and that successive versions were
getting worse, not better. The ultimate solution for Outlook: install a
local Russian version of Windows. (No thanks.)

So I gave up and went back to Outlook Express, where the user can fairly
easily get contrrol of encodings. In most cases Outlook Express know how to
read e-mail's hidden "charset" line, which means that Cyrillic e-mail sent
to you almost always shows up correctly, no matter what the origin. If not,
you simple go to View => Encoding and try each Cyrillic encoding until you
message is readable. (It's almost always koi8 or Windows Cyrillic - 1251;
occasionally Unicode - UTF8).

The process in Outlook is less transparent and rather unreliable.

Plus, outside of the Cyrillic issues, Outlook is a very "heavy" program, at
least on my three computers. It overloads them, causing frequent crashes.

I suffered with Outlook for about two weeks and then switched to Express.

-Rich
_______________________________
Richard Robin
Chair, German and Slavic Department
The George Washington University
Washington, DC  20052
phone: 202-994-7081
fax: 202-994-0171
Читаю по-русски в любой кодировке.
Chitayu po-russki v lyuboi kodirovke.


----- Original Message -----
From: <elenakh at RCCD.CC.CA.US>
To: <SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU>
Sent: Monday, September 03, 2001 3:32 PM
Subject: Microsoft Outlook/Russian


Dear SEELANGers
Please help me to solve these problems!!!
When I was using Outlook Express for my email, I could write, receive
messages, and read in Russian. A few days ago I switched into Microsoft
Outlook. And here are my problems: I cannot read Russian, all the messages
come with ??????  signs instead of Russian, and I cannot spellcheck Russian
either. However, I am able to write in Russian in my message. But the
messages come to the students with  ????  instead of Russian.

What is going on?
Do you know what I can do to fix all these problems?
Please help.
thank you in advance.

Elena Kobzeva-Herzog
Assistant Professor
Spanish/Russian
elenakh at rccd.cc.ca.us
(909) 222-8287

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