Quick link to ClearStationery.bas
I don’t have much (any?) history of posting tips for the Windows platform, but I’m currently stuck with it for daily work use, so I figured I might as well share some tips that my readers who happen to be in the same predicament will find useful. (
Planet Debian readers please have mercy.)
One of the worst things you that Microsoft Outlook allows a user to do is select a “stationery” for email. Stationery goes beyond regular old HTML mail (e.g., fonts, colors, and bullet lists) to add a patterned background, invariably rendering the content much less readable than it would be with a white (or even any other color) background. What’s worse is every reply to an email with stationery also adopts the original sender’s stationery!
I searched quite a bit for a solution that does not involve sending a nastygram to the original sender. Of course you can convert the email to plain text (or set Outlook to only display the plain text version) and then convert back to HTML or Rich Text, but you’ll also lose other formatting that you might want to retain. You could cut and paste the text into a new email, but what is really needed is a simple VBA macro that will strip the stationery but not other formatting.
Strangely, I don’t think that macro already exists. So I wrote one, to some extent cribbing from related code snippets (mostly from
here). I now present to the world
ClearStationery.bas, my best contribution to date to the Outlook ecosystem. Simply paste it into your Outlook Visual Basic Editor (ALT-F11) and then map the macro ClearStationeryFormatting() onto a toolbar with a hotkey, and you can instantly remove stationery from any email, whether it is in the “preview” pane or the full message view.
Comments, bug reports, and improvements are welcome:
Sub ClearStationeryFormatting()
On Error GoTo ClearStationeryFormatting_Error
Dim strEmbeddedImageTag As String
Dim strStyle As String
Dim strReplaceThis As String
Dim intX As Integer, intY As Integer
Dim myMessage As Outlook.MailItem
' First, check to see if we are in preview-pane mode or message-view mode
' If neither, quit out
Select Case TypeName(Outlook.Application.ActiveWindow)
Case "Explorer"
Set myMessage = ActiveExplorer.Selection.Item(1)
Case "Inspector"
Set myMessage = ActiveInspector.CurrentItem
Case Else
MsgBox ("No message selected.")
Exit Sub
End Select
' Sanity check to make sure selected message is actually a mail item
If TypeName(myMessage) <> "MailItem" Then
MsgBox ("No message selected.")
Exit Sub
End If
' Remove attributes from <BODY> tag
intX = InStr(1, myMessage.HTMLBody, "<BODY", vbTextCompare)
If intX > 0 Then
intY = InStr(intX, myMessage.HTMLBody, ">", vbTextCompare)
strReplaceThis = Mid(myMessage.HTMLBody, intX, intY - intX + 1)
End If
If strReplaceThis <> "" Then
myMessage.HTMLBody = Replace(myMessage.HTMLBody, strReplaceThis, "<BODY>")
strReplaceThis = ""
Else
Err.Raise vbObjectError + 7, , "An unexpected error occurred searching for the BODY tag in the e-mail message."
Exit Sub
End If
' Find and replace <STYLE> tag
intX = InStr(1, myMessage.HTMLBody, "<STYLE>", vbTextCompare)
If intX > 0 Then
intY = InStr(8, myMessage.HTMLBody, "</STYLE>", vbTextCompare)
strReplaceThis = Mid(myMessage.HTMLBody, intX, ((intY + 8) - intX))
End If
If strReplaceThis <> "" Then
myMessage.HTMLBody = Replace(myMessage.HTMLBody, strReplaceThis, "")
End If
If InStr(1, myMessage.HTMLBody, "<center><img id=", vbTextCompare) > 0 Then
strEmbeddedImageTag = "<center><img id="
'"<center><img id=""ridImg"" src="citbannA.gif align=bottom></center>"
intX = InStr(1, myMessage.HTMLBody, strEmbeddedImageTag, vbTextCompare)
If intX = 0 Then
Err.Raise vbObjectError + 8, , "An unexpected error occurred searching for the embedded image file name start tag in the e-mail message."
Exit Sub
End If
intY = InStr(intX + Len(strEmbeddedImageTag), myMessage.HTMLBody, " align=bottom></center>", vbTextCompare)
If intY = 0 Then
Err.Raise vbObjectError + 9, , "An unexpected error occurred searching for the embedded image file name end tag in the e-mail message."
Exit Sub
End If
strEmbeddedImageTag = Mid(myMessage.HTMLBody, intX, intY - intX)
intX = InStr(1, myMessage.HTMLBody, "<CENTER>", vbTextCompare)
intY = InStr(intX, myMessage.HTMLBody, "</CENTER>", vbTextCompare)
strReplaceThis = Mid(myMessage.HTMLBody, intX, intY - intX) & "</CENTER>"
myMessage.HTMLBody = Replace(myMessage.HTMLBody, strReplaceThis, "", , , vbTextCompare)
End If
' Finally, saved modified message
myMessage.Save
On Error GoTo 0
Exit Sub
ClearStationeryFormatting_Error:
MsgBox "Error " & Err.Number & " (" & Err.Description & ")"
Resume Next
End Sub
Stationery-B-Gone!
Share This
...install a Babelbox, de-activate the "db_info babelbox/info" line in preseed_early and put the following in big capitals on a sheet of paper attached to the monitor:
I speculate that most of what we do for Debian squares with what
others do for their respective distro. Thus, it should be possible
to identify a conceptual workflow applicable to all distros,
consolidate individual workflows on a per-package basis, and profit
from each other. Jonathan let me have the after-afternoon-coffee
slot of the 
My body hates Mondays. Over the weekend I get up at 9am or later. My
coffee consumption is also minimal. This morning I was up at the usual
5:30am and was on my 4th cup of coffee before 10am. And we're not
talking weak coffee - my cow orkers have been known to pour the pot out
if it doesn't meet with their approval for strength. This thunking
between the weekend and my weekday routine means that Mondays are sort
of a blur for me. Thankfully I seem to fall into more of a rhythm by
Tuesday.
(This post is a substitute for any technical content. I'll try to think
of some soonish.)
After a three and a half week test drive during my last year’s summer
holidays and much consideration about the configuration, I finally
ordered a 
I spent a good few hours today on creating a preliminary schedule for
the Debian Developer's room at FOSDEM 2008. Just as I had finished it
and sent it to the speakers to get their feedback before declaring it
final, I received a reminder from the FOSDEM organizers that the
schedule is due by the end of this week. My timing is impeccable :-)
Having said that, the schedule is full. If you wanted to do a talk at
FOSDEM, you're probably too late by now. Try again next year.
Time to start focusing on the booth now, I guess...
As written 
It's interesting to compare the "marketing features" of proprietary
version control systems and the FOSS equivalents. For example, I
happened to stumble across 
I've got an upload of gpe-tetris pending - see