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Outlook showing boxes instead of text

#1 kelleeeh

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Posted 15 August 2012 - 11:08 AM

Outlook is showing small boxes, instead of text in the program itself - not in incoming or outgoing messages.

The areas affected are:

Sent to address, sent from address, some menus...but not all of them.

I've attached a picture to give you an idea of what I'm talking about.
Attached Image: image002.jpg
ANY help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!!

#2 dsenette

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Posted 15 August 2012 - 12:04 PM

where'd you get your copy of office?

#3 kelleeeh

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Posted 15 August 2012 - 12:31 PM

It's company installed.

We're trying to avoid shipping the laptop to corporate for a repair!

#4 dsenette

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Posted 15 August 2012 - 12:42 PM

do you have any foreign language type requirements in your business that would result in a foreign language version of the software being installed?

do you have the installation disks or images?

#5 kelleeeh

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Posted 15 August 2012 - 01:19 PM

No...no reason a different language version would have been installed.

I thought it was probably locale or language related, but I've checked all the settings, and they're all correct.

Outlook is the only program that's being affected by this, and it started happening about a week ago. My boss has been using this laptop for about a year with no incident.

It's weird. Its not happening throughout the entire program...just in a few places.

#6 dsenette

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Posted 15 August 2012 - 01:45 PM

outlook 2007 or 2010?

#7 kelleeeh

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Posted 15 August 2012 - 02:01 PM

Sorry...2007 Professional

And, no...I missed a question in your earlier post: we don't have the installation disks.

Thanks!!

#8 dsenette

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Posted 15 August 2012 - 02:18 PM

1.On the Help menu, click Office Diagnostics.
2.Click Continue, and then click Start Diagnostics.

#9 AstraNut

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Posted 15 August 2012 - 03:06 PM

Whenever I see "boxes" like that, it's because the character encoding doesn't match with the language and/or font family being used. Relevant: UTF-8 is preferred usually.

Configure automatic message encoding options in Outlook 2007

Other Sources


#10 dsenette

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Posted 15 August 2012 - 03:12 PM

right, but these are encoding issues in the menu structure of outlook itself, not the content of messages.

#11 Troy

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Posted 16 August 2012 - 07:08 PM

I've never seen that before...

If running Diagnostics doesn't resolve the issue...

Are there any other problems happening with the computer (even if they don't appear to be related)? Also what about if you check out Computer Properties and/or any other program properties (Help > About). What about Word or Excel, same problem there too?

#12 AstraNut

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Posted 16 August 2012 - 08:55 PM

Settings are still worth checking out if the diagnostic fails. Has worked for me before.

#13 kelleeeh

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Posted 18 August 2012 - 06:48 AM

Thanks everybody...I've been off work for a few days. When he gets in this morning, I'll try everything proposed here, and let you know how it goes!

Wish me luck.

#14 Troy

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Posted 20 August 2012 - 06:25 PM

What are the results so far?

#15 BKV

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Posted 30 September 2012 - 10:49 AM

I am now having this EXACT same problem as the print screen and need my Outlook everyday to do my "business". Just Googled this and found this forum....I can't read anything in my Outlook as everything I am typing is coming up with these boxes....arrgghhhh!! Help anyone please?

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